IPS 3531 
.U7 L5 
1899 

I Copy 1 



t niW SSB tr . nfjmmKV i ^mfnm^^ 



mmmmm: 




mnd OtI 




sflndli?r 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright ^'o. 

ShelLjliL.^. 3 1 

r+/ 7 U 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIVING IN THE WORLD 



WITH 



Other Ballads and Lyrics 



Living in the Slorld 

with 

Other Ballads and Lyrics 




Chicago and JNTcw York 

Randt )VIc]VaUy <& Company 

mdcccxcix 



V- 






Registsr of Copyrights 






\tn 



46697 



Copyright, 1899, by Rand, McNally & Co. 



SECOND COPY, 



DEDICATION. 



To whosoever has drunk the wine 
Of light-heart Love in a care-free fashion; 

To whosoever has felt the fine, 
Pure, fair delight of a blameless passion'. 

To whosoever has dreamed him dreams', 
To him whom Hope has said good morrow, 

To him whose blood for his country streams; 
To her who sits in the dark with Sorrow. 

To good and bad and the half-way folk. 

Who would if they dared but fear transgression,- 

Come robed in light, or in mask and cloak: 
Here none is harried to make confession. 

To any my friends who have wished me gain; 

To m,y enemies all, revealed or hidden, — 
Here's welcome frank in a homely strain: 

Saint and sinner alike are bidden. 

To man and maid, to mother and child. 
Torn from the clay to wear Time's tether: — 

Here life looks higher, by faith beguiled. 
Where all sorts sit at the board together. 



PREFACE. 
(Ballad of the Poet's Desire to be Rich.) 

O, a pitiful experience it is 

To wear the chains and hear the Muses calling ; 
The agony reflected on the phiz 

Of the victim is amazing and appalling. 

He would like to cut a figure in the world, 

And he'd like to tread the highlands of Parnassus; 

But — the Devil was behind the gun that hurled 
The poet through the secret misty passes. 

He will tell you, if you listen, he despises 

The sordid gauds that fill his neighbors' eyes, 

That his high mission is not to the prizes, 
But, just between the two of us, he lies. 

For he has a thousand hungers in his heart 
That saner men would laugh at if they knew: 

A cabin in a forest far apart 

From the city's grim, iconoclastic crew ; 

A sweetheart — and a new one now and then — 
To sympathize with all his noble notions, 

To idolize the creatures of his pen. 

And mix for him his Heliconic potions. 



PREFACE. 

The poet is a sultan — in his mind ; 

He swims the starry vastness — in his trances; 
Alas, that one of his ethereal kind 

Must beg the man who prints him for advances. 

The thousand hungry hungers I have hinted 

Are not the only miseries he knows ; 
No sooner does he get a vision printed 

Than he meets some heartless person whom he owes. 

The poet has a family, of course, 

For Poverty was never less than fertile; 

Nine sturdy little shavers on the force. 

He hopes will hew the oak and shun the myrtle. 

He prays that they inherit from the mater 
The solid sense that gives a man control ; 

That they, in rubbing up against a frater, 
Will touch his pocket rather than his soul. 

In short, and in conclusion, at the center, 

He is not so fantastic as he seems ; 
The Muse of Song — he says it — is his mentor, 

But yellow tints the purple of his dreams. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 13 

Living in the World. — 

Living in the World, 15 

Song in Praise of Poverty, 18 

Content, 19 

The Songs of Robert Burns, 20 

To Jean Nicot, the Smoker's Saint, .... 22 

John and Darius Green 26 

The Corncob Center Sage, 28 

The Banquet, 30 

National Follies, 32 

A Classic, 33 

The Poet's Dilemma, 34 

Ballad of Emancipated Souls, 35 

Sex, 41 

Savin' the Country, 42 

To a Child, 44 

Not All a Weary Way, 46 

The Happy Sky, 49 

A Song of a Mother, ....... 50 

At Christmas, 52 

The Way of the World, 54 

Song to Chicago, 55 

Putting the Sheet to Press 56 

The Rich and the Poor, 58 

The Three Gifts, 60 

Trout-and-Whiskey Trip, ...... 62 

Ballad of the Centurion, 64 

My Ancient Friend De Foe, 65 

Auto-Analysis, 68 

vii 



viii CONTENTS. 

Living in the WoviLD.— continued. — page 

To a Fashionable Poet, .69 

Ballad of the Rebel, 70 

To a Mouse in a Trap, 71 

A Traveler's Notes, 73 

Ballad of the Magazine, 77 

Mary and Jean, 79 

The Argosies of June, 81 

A Reverie at Evening 84 

Song for Nicotia, . 87 

To a Boyhood Friend, 88 

The Partners of Poverty Flat, 91 

The Rivals, 93 

Favorite Books 95 

Ode to the Grave, '. 98 

Making His Pile. 100 

The New Baby, 102 

Life's " Hour er So," 105 

Just an Hour of Fun, 107 

Ballad of the Rhymer, 108 

The End of It All, ....... iii 

The Island Races. — 

Murder in the Philippines, 115 

Ballad of Civilization, 117 

Ballad of the Belligerent Congressman, . . .119 

Echoes of the War for Cuban Freedom, . . . 121 

Shop Ballads. — 

The Old Frame Shop, 127 

Saturday Night, 129 

The Journeyman, . . 132 

Love Songs. — 

Song, . . 137 

Mary, 138 

In the Other Days, i39 

A Favor, 141 



CONTENTS. ix 

,LovE Songs. — continued. — page 

Shadows, 142 

I Met a Dainty Lady in a Wood, 144 

Love that Lives Forever, 146 

Frivolity, 147 

I Ask No Odds of Men or Gods, .... 148 

Portrait of a Woman, 150 

Song for CeciHa, 151 

Songs of the Cedar. — 

Address to Cedar River, . . . . . . i55 

With Mary by the Cedar's Side, . . . . I57 

Morning Along the Cedar, 158 

Where Cedar Rolls Her Tide Along, . . . 159 

City and River, 161 

"And so We Stroll to Youth's Enchanted Land." — 

The Dance, 165 

Tiny Tim, 167 

The Village Lad at Play, 169 

Poverty's Children, 171 

Paul's Celebrated Racer 172 

Under the Broad Elms, 174 

A Frolic at the Ford, 185 

If I Could Be a Boy Again 189 

Just One More Game, 192 

To One New in the World, 194 

The Babies' Tandem Tour, 195 

" Windy -pants " and "Jelly -face," .... 197 

Friends of Childhood, 199 

Of a Day that Is Dawning. — 

Of a Day that Is Dawning, 203 

Song of Revolution, 206 

Evolution 208 

In the Green of Our Leaf, ..... 209 

A Cry in the Darkness, 211 

The Purpose of Life, 212 



X CONTENTS. 

Of a Day that is Dawning. — continued. — page 

Sacrifice, 213 

An Army on tlie Way, 215 

In the Day of Democracy, 217 

Through the Spirit's Calm Eyes 218 

Creed, 220 

"Where All Sorts Sit at the Board Together." — 

Ballad of Watts' Billy Goat, 225 

Where Nature Waits, 228 

The Individual, 229 

Walt Whitman, 230 

Utah, 231 

The Bad Little Boy, 234 

The Singer Sleeps, 235 

The Spirit of Change, 236 

A Summer Day, 238 

Fishing Song, . . 241 

Sinning and Repenting, 243 

Night and Day, 245 

Progress, 246 

Night on the Prairie, . 249 

Night in the Wood, 251 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is a bold man or, at least, a man trustful of the 
public, who in this era of feverish practicality dares 
have printed a volume of his poems. But real poetry- 
is not dead, and will never die. It will but grow in 
its Homeric rank. While the world grows in thought 
and keen perception and sensibility there will come 
with every year throughout the coming ages more 
and more of those who will understand what poetry 
is and who will delight and revel in it and be helped 
by it. 

Poetry is not mere rhyme. There are many rhym- 
ers, but few poets. Frank Putnam is a poet. He 
has a claim upon the world and the world has a claim 
upon him. 

Stanley Waterloo. 
Chicago, August i8, 1899. 



LIVING IN THE WORLD 



LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



Nothing equal to it as a training for the heart, — 
Sympathy is waning in the man who dwells apart ; 

Learning he may gather from the pages of the wise — 
(Learning with a mighty big percentage of it lies !) 

I prefer the open way where men and women meet, 
Grumbling in the gloomy days and smiling in the 
sweet ; 

Hindering or helping, each according to his light, 
(Maybe I'm mistaken and the other man is right.) 

Sympathize with each of them, the gentle and the 
stern ; 

Time enough for all of us to live and lose and learn. 

Even in the meanest I can see the hand divine; 
Qualities that make them mean are duplicates of mine. 

The narrow-breasted angel with a virtue that is grim, 
He didn't pick his spirit, so I sympathize with him. 

2, 



16 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

True, he knows the party at the gate will let him 
through, 

But think how much he worries on account of me and 
you. 

He who has the gentle heart will oftenest be hurt ; 
Easier to wound him than a man of common dirt. 

Has a higher happiness when happiness he wins ; 
Has a deeper misery when misery begins. 

Woman with the heavy heart and sorrow in your eyes, 
Humankind are merciless but love is in the skies. 

Stumbled, little sister, when you didn't know the road ; 
Spring of joy welled up in you so fast it overflowed. 

I, shall I condemn you with a stony-fronted frown ? 
No, my dear, I love you for the love that led you 
down. 

Sister are you sorrowful ? Brother are you sad ? — 
Stumbled and the heart of you may never more be 
glad? 

Cheery up my dearies and in years that are to be 
Days of fair serenity may dawn for you and me. 

Sinners in the choir loft and sinners in the pew, — 
Parson's interceding and the Lord'll see us through. 



LIVING IN THE WORLD. 17 

Sexton has a cottage in a cozy little lot ; 
Tenants of the sexton are speedily forgot. 

Though we walk in weariness until the very end, 
Though we quit the weary world with none to call us 
friend, 

Dear old Mother Nature, with a mother's soothing 

charms. 
Lulls her tired children into slumber in her arms. 

She has love for all of us, the wise ones and the wild, 
Greeting us at evening with "Welcome home, my 
child !" 

Wicked hearts and sorry hearts, and happy hearts im- 
pearled — 

Nothing teaches charity like living in the world. 



18 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



SONG IN PRAISE OF POVERTY. 

A song in praise of poverty: 

Not grinding want that fills with hate 
The belly robbed to glut the great, 
Nor slavish toil in mean estate, 

But independent poverty. 

A song in praise of poverty : 

A rusty coat, say you? It hides 
A heart as gay as groom's or bride's ; 
No envious hate therein abides : 

A royal robe is poverty. 

A song in praise of poverty : 

No lands or houses call I mine. 
At my board water flows for wine, 
Yet I have many a friendship fine : 

A royal grace has poverty. 

A song in praise of poverty : 

The lass who lies within my arms 
Surrendered all her peerless charms 
For love and not for bonds or farms: 

A royal proof is poverty. 



CONTENT. . 19 

A song in praise of poverty: 

The simple joys that I must sieze 
Would have no power to pique or please 
Had I been born to idle ease: 

A royal spur is poverty. 

A song in praise of poverty: 
The Lord my God was good to me ; 
Alloting what He would to me, 
He gave the best He could to me — 

The royal gift of poverty ! 



CONTENT. 

Content with toil that's half a song, 

To no ambitions bound, 
In jovial mood I tramp along 

Toward the common ground. 



20 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE SONGS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

We view afar the mighty souls above Andean snows, 

^ Whose splendid lines to humbler minds the charms of 
art disclose; 

These dignify prosperity, but when the current turns, 

We find a brother's welcome in the heart of Robert 
Burns. 

Art's glorious aristocracy let serve the bookish clan 
Who rate a polished metaphor above the rights of 
man; 

I love him best who sang the worth of Poverty's con- 
cerns — 

The peer of nature's poets and her princes, Robert 
Burns. 

I love him for his human faults, God knows they cost 

him dear; 
For every hour of folly Fate decreed a bitter tear. 
And man shall prize his memory all time, since each 

discerns 

His own heart's vibrant passions in the songs of Rob- 
ert Burns. 



THE SONGS OF ROBERT BURNS. 21 

Though Pecksniffs turn in pious wrath from fiery 
strains that thrill, 

And frigid critics warn him off the Muses' sacred hill, 
The hand of truth-preserving Time these paltry creat- 
ures spurns, 
And lays a wreath of laurel on the brow of Robert 
Burns. 



22 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



TO JEAN NICOT, THE SMOKER'S SAINT. 



"It is somewhat odd that none of the long list of smok- 
insf poets has sung the praises of Jean Nicot, the French 
diplomat, for whom was named Nicotiana, the weed of great 
delight." — Chicago Times-Herald. 



Illustrious Sir, whom the All-Seer 

Located back in earlier ages, 
To you I bow in reverence here, 

Thou first among my favorite sages. 

Earth's rule, I know, is to forget 

(If truth hath come from her detractors) 

The useful sons of men ; and yet. 
You rank among her benefactors. 

And can it be that vandal Time, 

Whose ruthless hands ne'er know inaction, 
Shall ever lessen the sublime 

Delights of your dear benefaction? 

Ah, no, sweet Sir ! then rest at peace 
In whatsoever tomb they laid you. 

With splendid fame (since your release) 
A grateful world hath well repaid you. 



TO JEAN NICOT. 23 

Wherever comrades share their wine ; 

Where sits the scholar, meditating; 
Where sailors rove the rolling brine ; 

Where students drink their beer, debating ; 

Where lightly treads the wily scout, 

Alert against whatever ill be ; 
Where soldiers pace the grim redoubt — 

Your name is loved and ever will be. 

Oft at the time eve's gray enshrouds 

In somber garb the quiet hours, 
Have I, up through the fleecy clouds, 

Seen Florist Fancy's fairest flowers. 

Your health, good sir, I gladly pledge 
In this long, fragrant, moist Havana, 

And my true faith to you allege. 
Whose name adorns nicotiana. 



What mockery's in that "long, moist" weed ! 

You understand, Jean, I was joking; 
A corncob pipe's about my speed 

Whenever I'm inclined to smoking. 



24 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

But even so, shall none give praise 
Where due ? If yes, what purse-proud puffer 

Could do the trick? Ah! duty lays 
That task on some poor rhyming duffer. 

So runs the world. The few may eat 
Of pleasure's substance, but the many 

Must think joy's shadow's shadow sweet 
And buy it with their pauper's penny. 

The rhymer's task is to deceive 

By painting want in pleasing colors ; 

To filch th-e grief from them that grieve 
And rob dull Hfe of half its dolors ; 

To make the husk seem golden grain; 

Inspire the roofless wretch with sorrow 
That others out in misery's rain 

Share not his hope of happy morrow. 



3i: 



Long years have flown since you lay down, 

Quitting nicotiana sadly, 
But never singer wove thee crown. 

Where many should have wrought it gladly. 



TO JEAN NICOT. 25 

Let then this tribute, rude but warm, 

Unworthy of its inspiration, 
Claiming no grace of thought or form, 

Receive thy friendly commendation. 

And let me add, ere farewell's said. 

The ills you had you bravely bore 'em ; 

So I'll fling naught at Fortune's head. 

But smoke my pipes and thank God for 'em. 



26 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



JOHN AND DARIUS GREEN. 

Darius Green and his flying machine 

Were given to fame in the years gone by ; 
Now comes before us one Jonathan Green — 
A Green whose equal has never been seen — 
Not even Darius, for John can fly. 

Darius beheved he could cleave the air 

With wings of leather and wire — and luck ; 
The day was sunny, and calm, and fair 
When Darius sailed, but alas ! nowhere 

Was the earth so hard as the spot he struck. 

Darius, in failiire, achieved his desire. 

And proved to the world he was right in his mind. 
By mounting the skies, ever higher and higher ; 
But he left his harness of leather and wire — 

Left that and his battered-up clay behind. 

John Green knew better — no heaven for him ; 

The earth was as high as he cared to go. 
He chose a day when the sky was dim, 
When winds howled over him, wild and grim, 

And he did fly, and by no means slow. 



JOHN AND DARIUS GREEN. 27 

Whew ! how his wheels did whistle around 1 

One-twenty-five was his time for a mile. 
A long grey line and a murmuring sound 
Of his bicycle streaking it over the ground. 
Nothing the matter with John Green's style ! 



28 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE CORNCOB CENTER SAGE. 

There's a misty sort of pleasure 

In a quiet backward glance 
To the half-forgotten sorrows 

Of the seasons that are sped, 
But the world is moving forward 

And your solitary chance 
To acquire the things you're after 

Is in looking straight ahead. 

Half of life is light and gladness 

And the other half is pain ; 
God's eternal sense of fairness 

To his creatures here below 
Makes this ruling universal, 

So there's nothing you can gain 
By bewailing your misfortunes 

Or by cherishing your woe. 

Don't give up. to somber dreaming; 

While the years are flying fast. 
Better far by stern ambition 

To be tyrannously led 



THE CORNCOB CENTER SAGE. ^ 

Than to sit a-holding inquests 

On the failures of the past. 
Keep a-planning then, and digging 

And a-looking straight ahead. 

If your mind's so constituted 

That you're always seeing grief, 

And the ready tears of sympathy 
You're happy to be giving 

Don't you waste 'em on the people 

Who are dead and past relief, 
But expend 'em in the service 

Of the luckless now a-living. 

Half the melancholy persons 

Who are sighing by the way 
Would be finding life a pleasure 

And a benefit instead, 
If they'd give their whole attention 

To the work in hand today — 
Just a-digging and a-planning 

And a-looking straight ahead. 



^ LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE BANQUET. 

On this night in the dusk of my innermost chamber 
A reception is holden — come in, you were bidden. 
In the contact of spirit and flesh I salute you. 
You are welcome, you brother, you sister, none alien. 
Whether virgin or scarlet no matter, I love you. 

You that haughtily halt at the doorway awaiting 
Special sign, do you dream I will meet you with fawn- 
ing? 
Do you fancy the glitter of wealth or of station, 
Or the fame universal whose halo proclaims you, 
Will impel me to set you apart from these others ? 

For an answer I raise up this wretch from the gutter ; 
Him I heartily clasp with the grip of affection. 

Yea, depart if it please you, contemptuous, I care not, 

To the scenes of ephemeral triumphs returning; 

We shall surely make merry this evening without you. 

Does it seem to you, friends, that my chamber is nar- 
row 

For the multitude thronging the hallway, approach- 
ing? 

Never fear ; we shall find it commodious, sufficient ; 

To the right, to the left, there is room for all comers. 



THE BANQUET. 31 

You that slave in the sun that another may pluck 

you — 
You that sigh in the Shadows of Silence, cease, enter — 
To the banquet of Love in my heart I invite you. 



8 



32 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



NATIONAL FOLLIES. 

Small wonder old-world peoples laugh 
At our immense pretensions ; 

They see that we, though meaning well, 
Default from our intentions. 

While corporations loot the land, 

All silent sit our writers ; 
But press and legislature leap 

To stop a pair of fighters. 

We give away the public streets 

And pay a toll to use 'em, 
Then only talk when men who hold 

These privileges abuse *em. 

"Political equality," 

We oft declare is vital; 
How charmingly we prove it so 

By worshipping a title. 

"RepubHcan simplicity" 

Continually we're boasting; 
But titled foreign visitors 

Grow weary of our toasting. 



NATIONAL FOLLIES. 33 

Our "ballot pure" and ''freemen's rights" 

We flaunt in foreign faces ; 
Yet brazen thieves we tolerate 

In honorable places. 

No man who steals our water by 

The tun becomes a felon, 
But woe betide the dusky wretch 

Who steals a watermelon ! 

Could savage Patagonians 

Politically view us, 
I half suspect they'd quickly send 

Their missionaries to us. 



A CLASSIC. 

'Tis a record of olden-time dreamings or deeds 
That each one of us owns and that nobody reads. 



34 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE POET'S DILEMMA. 

Genius fleers at the common rules, 
And so makes sure of the scorn of fools. 

Talent conforms, accepts the laws, 
And wins the hurrying mob's applause. 

Mobs and their fads are soon forgot ; 
The rebel who scoffed and starved is not ; 

On his lean body a stone men raise ; 

They sing his songs and they chant his praise. 

Still stupid as ever are men today; 
They treat live gods in the same old way. 

The lesson in this, it appears to me, 
Is : Grub or Glory, which shall it be ? 

Do you want to be known and bought and read 
What time you're living, or mourned for dead ? 

You can't have both and you may get neither ; 
Lucky enough is the man with either. 

So make your choice while the hour remains :— 
Which shall it be, now, belly or brains ? 



BALLAD OF EMANCIPATED SOULS. 35 



BALLAD OF EMANCIPATED SOULS. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

We're Hungry Ike 

And Weary Bill ; 
We never worked — 

We never will. 

The hedge our roof, 

The sod's our cot, 
An oyster can's 

Our coffee pot. 

We break our fast 

At break o' day, 
Then hoist our traps 

And go our way. 

We revel in 

Fair nature's moods ; 
We're long on joys 

If short on foods. 



36 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Our life is free — 
We skip the towns ; 

No copper fierce 
Upon us frowns. 

We make no bluff 
About hard times ; 

The '7Z 

Or other crimes. 

We do not claim 
That we refrain 

From work to save 
Our fellows pain ; 

That jobs may fall 
In other hands, 

We but obey 

The Lord's commands. 

Man was not born 

To toil and sweat; 
We bow to fate 

With no regret. 
We're Hungry Ike 

And Weary Bill; 
We never worked — 

We never will. 



BALLAD OF EMANCIPATED SOULS. 37 

PHILOSOPHIC 

Good morning, Judge, 

You see we're back 
Along the old 

Familiar track. 
The same old Ike, 

The same old Bill, 
Who hold their old 

Convictions still. 

You understand 

We don't assert 
That honest toil 

Is apt to hurt 
The average man's 

Mere fleshly bowl 
But, ah! it soils 

His precious soul. 

Eh! what's that, judge — 

You ain't been sick? 
Well, me and Bill 

Have got no kick. 
The birds that fly 

Are no more free 
Of worldly cares 

Than Bill and me. 



38 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

The south affords 

A winter nest; 
The north provides 

Our summer rest. 
Our feed, perchance, 

Comes ally carte, 
But why should we 

Take that to heart? 



We were not born 

To marble halls, 
To silken robes 

Or full-dress balls ; 
But better far, 

We two were born 
To dip our hands 

In Plenty's horn. 

The world is long, 

The world is wide, 
But we can walk 

If we can't ride ; 
And we have learned 

That men will give 
Philosophers 

The means to live. 



BALLAD OF EMANCIPATED SOULS. 39 

Philosophers — 

You hear me, judge, 
Not merely men 

Who deal in fudge. 
The genuine 

Is he who seeks 
To learn no rules 

From ancient Greeks ; 



But who can sit 

With empty hands, 
Watching the rich 

In all the lands, 
And entertain 

No envious wish — 
No thought but just 

To smoke and fish. • 

What do we need? 

Well, Bill could use 
A corncob pipe 

And two good shoes. 
While you could set 

My soul at ease 
With apple pie 

And switzer cheese. 



40 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Ah, thank you. judge ; 

May you live long 
And never find 

The world go wrong ; 
Your labors thrive, 

Your mind stay keen, 
Your heart, as now, 

Be ever green. 

But as for me — 

Your old friend Ike, 
An idle, lean 

And restless tyke. 
And as for his 

Old pardner Bill— 
They never worked 

And never will. 



SEX, 41 



SEX. 

When woman evokes the world's applause 
Men study her work to learn the cause ; 
She inly credits her first of laws — 
The man of her choice behind her. 

In song or science, in trade or art, 
The lure of her soul is peace apart, 
The prize she covets a master's heart 
And his sheltering arms that bind her. 

In Love's dear name, to the world's despite, 
Her art is fashioned for his delight ; 
His smile is day and his frown is night, 
And the praise of his lips is glory. 

The world has never a bay so green 
As Love's own laurel that twines unseen ; 
But only the wise who read between 
The lines may know the story. 



4^ LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



SAVIN' THE COUNTRY. 

By jolly ! we've saved the country — 
There isn't a doubt of that ; 
But the truth is, Jim, 
I'm feelin' slim, 
For I'm lit'rally busted flat ! 

'Twas drinks for the boys in the mornin' 
An' drinks for the boys at night, 
With cigars between 
Till you never seen 
The equal of that there fight. 

I fetched out plenty o' money — 
The price o' the bay an' the black — 

But the dollars burned 

Wherever I turned 
Till I simply can't get back. 

So, Jim, as I was sayin', 
Till I get home again. 
You could make me feel 
Like dancin' a reel 
By lettin' me have a ten. 



SAVIN' THE COUNTRY. 43 

Ah, thank you, old man, thank you ! — 
The country's saved to a charm, 
An' I reckon as how 
I'd better go now 
And proceed to save the farm. 



44 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



TO A CHILD. 

The years stretch far before thee, 

Thy past is but a day; 
Fair skies of Hope spread o'er thee, 

Love watches by the way. 

As closely now I hold thee, 

Safe in a father's arms. 
So may my prayers enfold thee 

Ever through life's alarms. 

The tasks of Duty call thee — 
Youth has not long to dream ; 

In whatsoe'er befall thee 
Be thou the man thou seem. 

Hypocrisy will try thee 
With promises that shine, 

But keep thou Honor by thee. 
And happiness is thine. 

The gauds of life may pass thee 

And lowly be thy lot ; 
The pen of Time may class thee 

With mortals soon forgot ; 



TO A CHILD. 45 



Grim Toil may long enslave thee 
Ere Nature claim her debt, 

But He, thy God, who gave thee 
His work, will not forget. 



46 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



NOT ALL A WEARY WAY. 

This life's a weary way, my babes — ' 

A long and weary way ; 
Cares wake with morn and hover near 

Throughout the livelong day ; 
And oft, when thou art wrapped in sleep. 
Cares still their tedious vigils keep. 

Out of the all-surrounding gloom 
The grey years come and go ; 

Silent they pass nor ever hear 
The voice of mortal woe ; 

And all the store of gifts they bring 

Before the happy few they fling. 

These lightly sing and gaily hail 

This world all flowery fair; 
For them its hours are rich with sweets, 

And Mirth the king of Care. 
But O, the poor who dare not play — 
They find life's road a weary way. 



NOT ALL A WEARY WAV, M 

The many bide in want, my babes, 

Though joy seems meant for all ; 
In vain they call on God for aid, 

He does not heed their call. 
Perhaps the Master wills that man 
Himself shall frame a fairer plan. 

Were toil sole price of mortal life 

It were not dearly bought; 
Toil is, indeed, a solace dear 

For what we've vainly sought ; 
While labor holds the thoughts in thrall 
Souls cease to hear their longings call. 

We may not know by what a plan 

The Master holds His sway ; 
We only know that joys and griefs 

Alternate rule our day — 
That each, His purpose to fulfill, 
Must bow to the Eternal Will, 

Wherefore do you rejoice, my babes. 

Ere youthful days depart ; 
Too soon the solemn years will cast 

A shadow in each heart. 
Praise God you know it not today 
How life shall prove a weary way. 



48 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

And yet not all a weary way ; 

Some long-forgotten strain 
Of springtime's music echoes back 

And makes us glad again ; 
Sometimes wafts back to age's hours 
The fragrant breath of springtime's flowers. 



THE HAPPY SKY. 49 



THE HAPPY SKY. 

At midnight in the haggard street 
Where Want and Vice together He, 
I look toward the happy sky 

While Crime creeps past on tiger feet. 

Where Want and Vice together lie, 
And Sorrow hides her naked head, 
By some primeval impulse led 

Hope scans the heaven with wistful eye. 

O Sorrow, that with naked head 

Flees past me ghostlike in the gloom. 
Fast faring to a nameless tomb 

In some great city of the dead ; — 

O Want and Vice that living die ; 

O Crime by Want and Vice decreed! 

When shall man's quickened spirit read 
Love's lesson in the happy sky? 

Chicago, December, 1898. 



so LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



SONG OF A MOTHER. 

Sometimes, when dusk creeps softly down 

From out the eastern sky, 
Weary of toil and sick at heart, 

I lay my labors by, 

And fold my hands and close my eyes 

To sit and dimly dream. 
While all life's sorrows drift away 

On reverie's silent stream. 

Then I am but a little boy 

Beside my mother's knee, 
Hearing again the old sweet songs 

That once she sang to me. 

Happy the dreams wherein arise 

Dear visions of the past; 
Ah ! dear, so dear that I could pray 

They might forever last — 

That I might thus through all the years 

Her boyish lover be. 
Hearing again the old sweet songs 

That mother sang to me. 



SONG OF A MOTHER. 51 

Some time, perhaps, when Hfe is done, 

We two once more shall know 
The pure delight that graced our days 

So very long ago ; 

Love's compensation shall atone 

For all the lonely years * * * * 

Tonight accept, O mother mine, 
The tribute of my tears. 



52 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



AT CHRISTMAS. 

Christmas again ! Heigho, my lass, 
How swift the silent seasons pass ! 

The plans we made but yestermorn 

The same swift years have laughed to, scorn; 

The ship whereon our Hopes set sail 
Hath seldom met a friendly gale ; 

The haven where our Longings bide 
Is still upon the farther side. 

But, thank the Lord ! Time's wisdom turned 
Its glow upon us when we learned 

That bare walls bloom beneath the touch 
Of Love, that makes the Httle much. 

Christmas again ! Our babes at play 
Bring back the vanished years this day ; 

Yea, glad am I that Fate's decrees 
Denied us gold to give us these. 



AT CHRISTMAS. 53 

And you, whose patient love hath lent 
A tender grace to banishment — 



The realm we missed hath naught so dear 
To me as your fair presence here. 



So do I bless the seasons urned, 
Wherein two hearts the lesson learned 

That bare walls bloom beneath the touch 
Of Love, that makes the Httle much. 



54 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

Two men went down to the sea in a ship, 
Flushed with the scarlet of drink and song; 

A ribald jest was on cither's lip, 

Their draughts at the bottle were deep and 
strong. 

A storm arose and the vessel sank ; 

The sea rejoiced in triumphant hate, 
And two fought death on a narrow plank 

That shivered and sank beneath their weight. 

Then one cried out : *'I must leave you. Jack ; 

You have babes and a wife but luckily I 
Have none who will mourn if I come not back ; 

And one may live, but one must die." 

"True," said the other, "my wife will wail ; 

'Tis a coward deed, but I must live on." * * * 
Two hours later a passing sail 

Took up the one, but the other was gone. 

The dull world cheers for the man who wins, 
And looks not under the sea or the sod ; 

So it says of the one that "he died in his sins," 
While the other "was saved by a loving God." 



SONG FOR CHICAGO. 55 



SONG FOR CHICAGO. 

Chicago, Prince of Cities, I salute you 

Young leader in the kingdom of the strong: 

You give me leave to labor for a living, 
I give your name to democratic song. 

I owe you not a dollar — what you pay me 
Is mine by right of labor late and long : 

You owe me naught, Chicago, yet I love you. 
And tender you the tribute of a song. 

I do not share the whining accusation 
That art is here neglected by the throng: 

True art is to its maker's soul sufficient — 
A picture or a palace or a song. 

I see you honor honesty in office ; 

I see you swift to grapple giant wrong; 
I see you pause from trade to worship beauty : 

In each is mspiration for a song. 

To conquer health and plenty for your millions 
I see your mighty Genius toiling long : 

For virtue and for valor I salute you, 
Chicago, Prince of Cities, in a song. 



56 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



PUTTING THE SHEET TO PRESS. 

The Print grabbed hold of the lean and the fat 
And hustled them into the forms — 

Locals and liners, Editor's Chat, 
And a screed on "Iowa Storms." 

"Two hours late," says the Print — ''no less !'* 
To the Devil he shouted: ''Bill !— 

Go get Pete Jackson to twist the press, 
And you've got no time to kill." 

The Old Man studied the proof sheets through 

And he said, with a weary smile : 
"Not very fine, but I guess it'll do ; 

People want facts, not style." 

P. Jackson strode through the sanctum door 
With an odor of gin in his wake ; 

He carefully folded his coat on the floor 
And earnestly started to slake 

The remains of his thirst at the battered tank 

That stood on the broken stool. 
The Old Man wandered across to the bank, 

The Devil juggled a rule. 



PUTTING THE SHEET TO PRESS. . 57 

P. Jackson sighed as he gripped the wheel 

With a hold that was half caress; 
"All right," said the Print, "let the old girl spiel !" 

And the Sheet went into the press. 

The old press sullenly creaked within, 

But Pete was still at his toil ; 
"I guess," said the Print, "that we'll give her gin 

Hereafter, instead of oil." 

Two hours crawled by as the hours crawl 

When the earth lies brown and dry, 
And the air sinks low like a fiery pall 

And the sun hangs white in the sky. 

"At last!" cried the Devil, "the last rag's run 

And wrapped and sent to the mail." 
P. Jackson left witli his coin hard won, 

And the boy went out with the pail. 



S8 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE RICH AND THE POOR. 

The room was narrow and mean and bare 

Where the baby gasped for breath ; 
The mother murmured a hopeless prayer 
That died in the hell of the blazing air 
For the fields of her girlhood, cool and fair, 
While the infant fought with Death. 

A wee form lay on the ragged sheet 

That was wet with a mother's tears ; 
But its white soul rose through the blinding heat 
That sank like a pall on the squalid street — 
Ah ! Death took all that her heart held sweet 
And left her the lonely years. 

O you that in purple and silks abide, 
Had the babe no claim on you? 

Had the mother's prayer at her darling's side 

No power to pierce through the walls of pride ? 

Do you owe no debt to the Man who died? 
Did He leave you naught to do? 



THE RICH AND THE POOR. 59 

Add not Fate's wrath to the human hates 

That fester in garrets dim; 
I tell you the rage of the ages waits 
And crouches low at your mansion gates ; 
Christ's brotherhood only its thirst abates — 

Go forth in the name of Him ! 



60 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE THREE GIFTS. 

We thank Thee, Lord, for Thy first gift, Life ; 

Precious the privilege, living to see 
The race arising to peace through strife, 

Merciful, generous, chivalrous, free. 

Not yet, we know, have Thy children grown 
Into the brotherhood Heaven hath planned ; 

But Thou wilt garner where Thou hast sown 
Plentiful harvests in every land. 

We thank Thee, Lord, for life's dearest prize, 
Love that abideth while life abides ; 

That lightens the way to the distant skies, 
Guiding us fairly whate'er betides. 

Love hath its sorrows, we know, as deep 

As its fountains of joy where we drink at will ; 

Yet love lives on past the dreamless sleep 
Of the dear ones out on the quiet hill. 

We thank Thee, Lord, for Thy last gift, Death, 
Making for all of our ills amends; 

That gently severs the fainting breath, 
Giving us over again to our friends. 



THE THREE GIFTS. 61 

The grave is low and a darksome room, 
Yet shall we enter with never a fear; 

And rest at peace in its rayless gloom, 
Knowing, O Father, that Thou art near. 



6i UVING W THE WORLD. 



TROUT-AND-WHISKEY TRIP. 

Going to start tomorrow — 

My trout-and-whiskey trip; 
Go on away my sorrow, 
I'm going to let you slip. 
I haven't got a wish 
But just to sit and fish 
And listen to the music of the water's 
soothing swish. 

Go on away with money — 

I've got a better game ; 
And don't you come, my honey, 
To offer me your fame ; 
For I'm a-going to ride 
Along the river's side 
Until I reach the rifflle where the gamy 
trout abide. 

O, tell me not that duty 

Declares that I should work ; 
The soul is dead to beauty 

That wouldn't gladly shirk, 



TROUT-AND-WHISKEY-TRIP. 63 

When river naiads fair 
In unison declare 

They're glad to see a fellow with his fish- 
ing tackle there. 



8 



64 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



BALLAD OF THE CENTURION. 

O he has no time for to work or to play, 

For he rides all night and he rides all day ; 

And I've heard, but I never have believed it, quite, 

That he rides all day and he rides all night. 

However that be, he is ever to be seen 
A-pedaling along on his made-to-fit machine ; 
With his back humped high and his head humped low, 
He rides through the mud and he rides through the 
snow. 

When the old year rose and cashed in its chips, 
And the new sat in with a smile on its lips, 
He mounted his wheel by the light of the stars, 
And reeled of¥ a couple of century bars. 

Thus ever since then he has been on the go ; 
He always rides fast and he never rides slow, 
And he meets all remarks with a pitying sneer 
And, "Notice my mark at the end of the year." 

O he has no time for to work or to play. 
For he rides all night and he rides all day ; 
And I've heard, but I never have believed it, quite, 
That he rides all day and he rides all night. 



MY ANCIENT FRIEND DE FOE. 65 



MY ANCIENT FRIEND DE FOE. 

Long years have sped the days I read 
Your daring deeds and bloody- — 

Since, safely hid behind the lid 
Of what I seemed to study, 

Your thrilling tale of storm and sail 
Transfixed me with its wonders, 

And brought to pass in every class 
A startling train of blunders. 

What cared I then which tribes of men 

Put forth across the oceans ? 
On what pretext should I be vexed 

With vain grammatic notions? 

No teacher's grufif and curt rebufif 
Had slightest power to phase me. 

While Crusoe's skill and sturdy will 
Continued to amaze me ; 

Until, alas ! it comes to pass 
That, just when Crusoe sighted 

The foot-marked road where Friday strode, 
The teacher's cane alighted. 



66 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

No lightning stroke more swiftly broke, 
Nor none more swiftly shattered; 

With evil mind he stood behind 
And stoutly whaled and battered. 

And then he took that precious book — 
O, grief all else transcending ! 

With vile intent and fiercely rent 
Its pages past all mending. 

His savage glare so chilled the air, 

As spitefully he threw you 
In fragments by, that straightway I 

Made sure he never knew you. 

Each year that flies doth emphasize 

The loyalty I bore you ; 
Old Time's retreat but makes more sweet 

The pangs I suffered for you. 

What else transcends the joy of friends 
Whose steadfast faith involves them 

In ceaseless fear of peril near 

From which time ne'er absolves them ? 

'Tis even so ; whiles 'neath the glow 
Of evening's lamp I've shrined thee, 

Unconsciously I turn to see 
If he lurks not behind me. 



MY ANCIENT FRIEND DE FOE. 67 

Still do I dread his cat-like tread, 

His cane upraised to flay me ; 
But still do you, as ever new. 

With plenteous meed repay me. 

Wherefore, old friend, if chance shall send 

That teacher's soul before you, 
Forgive, I pray, the hasty way 

In which he one time tore you. 

Consider, too the patience due, 
And let no rage run through you; 

Nor be forgot his mournful lot 
In that he never knew you. 



68 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



AUTO-ANALYSIS. 

Lo I am but a harp through which the winds of pas- 
sion sweep, 
Attuned to voice the melody of airs that whispering 

flow, 
Responsive to the ardor of the tropic tempest's glow, 
Exultant with the tiger gales that down the world- 
aisles leap. 

My riches are the symphonies the God of Nature 
writes — 
The lyrics sung by zephyrs in the orange and the 

pine. 
The groan of man in martyrdom beneath the sword 
divine, 
The rapture of the lover on the throne of his delights. 

Not mine the palace builded with the plunder of the 
mart, 
Not mine the haloed happiness of vine-embowered 

home, 
Not mine through halls of learning and of ar- 
tistry to roam. 
But mine the mighty pulsing of the universal heart. 



TO A FASHIONABLE POET. 69 



TO A FASHIONABLE POET. 

Is the murmur of approval, high and higher, 
That the winds of favor waft you very sweet ? 

Does your spirit know its old heroic fire, 
That could laugh alike at failure or defeat ? 

Is the olden inspiration in your lyre 

Now that Fashion scatters roses for your feet? 

Are you happy, say, or sorry, since the morning 
When, by Want and wily Patronage beset, 

You began, with silken sophistries adorning 

Greed's aggressions, the repayment of your debt ? 

Was the offer fit for seizing or for scorning ? 
Can they teach a living conscience to forget ? 

You are silent : — is their scorn allied to pity ? 

Do they give you leave from labor now and then 

To invent a gilded song or Bacchic ditty 
In the practice of a prostituted pen? 

Thou eunuch of the prosperous and pretty, 
Who might have had dominion over men! 



70 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



BALLAD OF THE REBEL. 

I'm a link in a line from the dark to the dawn, 
A little while here and a long time gone ; 
Shall I fight for the fallen or dog-like fawn 

On the great for a Ufe of ease ? 
A plain lean rebel in a threadbare coat, 
My estate is the air, the hour and a vote ; 
But the bread of a patron would stick in my throat. 

So I reckon I'll spare my knees. 

The weapon I forge is a rough-wrought song ; 

It may die soon, or it may stay long 

To rally the right and to harry the wrong, 

But whether it die or stay 
Is of little concern to the man who sings 
For he sees the finish of serfs and kings. 
And he knows that deep in the heart of things 

Is the seed of a better day. 

I might gain favor, as many have gained, 

If I sang for the solid and frowned on the chained ; 

But I want no wreath that is redly stained 

With the blood of a fellow man. 
For pity of the fallen whom no man cheers, 
For the children coming in the unborn years 
I pledge my hour to the day that nears — 

The day of a nobler plan. 



TO A MOUSE IN A TRAP. 71 



TO A MOUSE IN A TRAP. 

Poor trembling wretch, what sad mishap 
Has brought you tight within my trap ? 
Had man's vile greed so clean bereft 
Your bairnies that you'd stoop to theft ? 
Ah, who'd not lay his scruples by 
That heard his babies' hungered cry? 

Still, though to mercy I incline, 

Must I the ends of law resign? 

The crust you sought full well you knew 

Belonged to me and not to you. 

But — peace ! I'll grant your frenzied plea, 

Move back the bars and set you free. 

If man one God-like spark can claim, 
Then surely mercy is its name. 
So, though you meant to steal my bread, 
I'll spend no anger on your head, 
But, warmed by gentle mercy's flame, 
I'll let you go as poor's you came. 



72 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

As poor's you came, yet richer far 
By freedom's gift than now you are. 
Your Hfe's to me of Httle worth — 
To you the grandest fact of earth ; 
So now, whilst I throw wide my door, 
Begone, wee neighbor, sin no more ! 



A TRAVELER'S NOTES. 73 



A TRAVELER'S NOTES. 

You are wise and your system is good — O I doubt not 
You have coined the concentrate discernings of ages 
Into laws that proclaim you past masters of wisdom. 

I am only a stranger a little while straying 
Open-eyed through your highways your customs ob- 
serving. 
I shall tarry not long and I promise you freely 
In the land whither presently I must be faring 
I shall mention you only in praise of your greatness. 

After many quick days on the way I am resting; 
Here alone in the twilight I loiter, reflecting 
On the miracles wrought by the cunning of man ! — 
On the palaces reared by the mighty, the proud, 
To the glory of one whom they designate God. 
He, I take it, is one of the mighty, the proud. 
Since it seems he has little in common with those 
Of the lowlier orders. 

Perhaps I mistake him, 
But my host has assured me he rules with all power — 
That the proud and the lowly alike are dependent 
On his favor for even the least of life's blisses ; 
And I see that life's ease is reserved for the mighty. 



74 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

If I err you will know it is due to scant knowledge, 
To the infinite scope of the marvels awaiting, 
The absurdly inadequate bounds of my vision, — 
You will know and condone in your clear understand- 
ing. 

I was reading this day (and it somehow perplexed me 
Till I learned how the God who unerringly rules 
Is allied with the tribes of the mighty, the proud) 
Of a Governor's agent sent out to inquire 
Into travelers' tales of the presence of hunger 
In the huts of the serfs of the proud and the mighty ; 
How the agent, returning, reported men haggard. 
Worn, wild with an infinite rage at existence. 
Still dumbly respecting the gains of their masters ! 

And he told of one desolate, broken, in anguish, 
Pouring tears — the last tribute of love to starvation — 
On the pallid cold face of her perishing infant. 
More he told of the pomp of the millionaire owner 
Of the mine whence the diggers — his serfs — had ex- 
tracted, 
Being paid as we see, wealth sufficing to give him 
Lofty station as one of the favored of God. 

This, I own, shook my faith in your absolute fairness 
Until one of your wise men, a priest in the temple, 



A TRAVELER'S NOTES. 75 

Quoting straight from the Word — so he said — of his 

Master, 
Bade me know that "the poor shall be always among 

us; 
Granting which, 'tis but proper they delve for the 

mighty ; 
And 'tis well they abide in a state of abasement 
Lest they grow over-bearing and question God's 

statute." 

'There are madmen," he told me, "who prate of 'equal- 
ity/ 

Sorry chaps" — here he tapped with significant ges- 
ture 

The abode of his brain — "vulgar knaves of no stand- 
ing. 

"Such as these," he went on, "would demolish tradi- 
tion — 

Upset utterly all the conditions established, 

With their schemes for 'uplifting the down-trodden 

poor.' 
Arrant nonsense! my dear sir. Why, we mvist have 

these classes; 

They have always existed, will always exist. 

It is God's holy will" — there was more, but I lost it, 

For the moan of the mother appealing disturbed me. 

I was thinking, too, just at that moment, of Heaven. 
This seems, really, one of the handsomest features 



76 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Of the many provided for the mighty, the proud; 
Such a glowing account as I heard of its beauty ! 
I had earher read it was free to all comers, 
To the lowly and mighty alike ; but now, plainly, 
I preceive this is false — clubs are not so conducted. 
In these clubs you call churches — (these, you say, are 

the doorways 
To the ultimate human distinction, fair Heaven) — 
Here we see that the piously prosperous only 
Are at home. The same law^ rules in Heaven, I take it. 

If 'twere not an afifront to my kind entertainer 
In this wonderful land, I could wish that the lowly 
Were provided, at least, with that measure of comfort 
Bestowed by the proud on their horses and cattle ; 
These they do not permit to be withered with hunger. 

Ah, well, it was always the habit of pilgrims, 
Taking notes in strange places, to criticise freely. 
But not I, for I judge that a race so sagacious. 
Seeing wrong — if wrong be — will make haste to amend 
it. 



BALLAD OF THE MAGAZINE. 77 



BALLAD OF THE MAGAZINE. 

The literary underbrush is full of splendid game, 

Although the Richard Gilders fail to recognize the 
same; 

So we are going to take our guns and hunt it slick and 
clean 

When Joe gets time to drop around and start his mag- 
azine. 

If people here want Kipling and Dolly Hope and 

Bryce, 
Why, we'll put 'em in with pleasure and we'll put 'em 

up their price ; 
But all the while we're buying names, be sure we'll do 

our best 
To feed the hungry poets of the big and hearty west. 

We're going to get a story from the man who never 

swore, 
With numerous other features that you never saw 

before ; 
And articles on Purity in Politics will be 
Presented by the famous Doctor Coughlin, B. H. D. 



78 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

The monthlies that you buy today, from Boston or 

New York, 
Are often hardly worth their weight in Armour's 

pickled pork; 
Chicago's going to show you what the Ai brand 

should mean. 
When Joe gets time to drop around and start his 

magazine. 



MARY AND JEAN. 79 



MARY AND JEAN. 

How oft at eve did Burns along 

The banks of Ayr appear, 
A melancholy child of song, 
Musing amid a mournful throng 

Of recollections dear. 

The kindly after years had healed 

The wound within his breast ; 
Fair Jean's devoted love revealed 
That happiness which death concealed 
When Mary went to rest. 

He fondly scanned his bairns at play 

About the cottage door ; 
Toiled stoutly onward, day by day. 
Obedient to honor's sway, 

That bound him evermore. 

And yet, mayhap, in some lone place 

Where Ayr's clear waters roll, 
His dreams at eve recalled the grace 
Of sainted Highland Mary's face. 
The mistress of his soul. 

6 



80. LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

He loved ! — and who that loves today 

Shall grudge the pensive hour 
When, clad in Sorrow's mantle grey, 
He paused beside Ayr's quiet way 
To woo oblivion's power? 

What dreams were his of pleasures deep 

That he might never know ! 
Perhaps, though years his secret keep, 
Thinking of her who fell asleep, 
He deemed 'twas better so. 



THE ARGOSIES OF JUNE. 81 



THE ARGOSIES OF JUNE. 

Books lose their pleasing power 
When fairer scenes invite ; 

I toast June's sweetest flower — 
The graduate in white. 

Upon the toiling myriads 
I calmly turn my back. 

To drink his honeyed periods — 
The graduate in black. 

Each bears a cure unfailing 
For all our earthly ills ; 

Each "argosy goes sailing" — 
And father pays the bills. 

Their mother sits a-smiling, 
And little brother grins 

As each, with words beguiling, 
The "broader life" begins ; 

While I sit back a-dreaming 

Of other happy days, 
When other children, beaming, 

Received the public's praise. 



82 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Wherever have they vanished — 
To what untoward dime? 

By what misfortune banished, 
Who should have shone subHme ? 

I fear that Fate, unfeeling, 
Has forced some to the wall, 

Has scoffed at their appealing 
And gloried in their fall ; 

That many a bold beginner 

In life's eventful ride 
Has made a hasty dinner 

For the hideous monster Pride ; 

That others, gayly faring 
« 
With Pleasure, as they rode. 

Have found him change his bearing- 
No longer lead, but goad. 

Some, mayhap, let Ambition 
Deceive more cautious Fear, 

And shriveled by attrition 
With sterner bodies near. 

Ah, well, there's no use grieving 
Before dark days come in — 

Time brings his undeceiving 
Whether vou lose or win. 



THE ARGOSIES OF JUNE. 83 

So, then, away out yonder, 

Beyond the sunset land, 
Let each one gladly wander 

With Fancy, hand in hand. 



84 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



A REVERIE AT EVENING. 

The Old Man dozed in the broad-backed chair, 

His chin at ease on his breast ; 
His white loclcs tossed in the fitful air 

That blew from the sun-lit west. 

The door of the shop stood open wide ; 

The paper had gone to the mail. 
The Print and the Devil had stepped outside 

With a dime and an old tin pail. 

I mournfully closed the subscription list 

And laid it aside for the day, 
With its record of men who had "never missed" 

And of men who would never pay. 

Poor men were there who in homely jeans 

Paid up for the Sheet in advance, 
And men who were proud of their garnered means 

That led us a lively dance. 

"Give me the man," thought I to myself, 

*'Who sturdily pays as he goes ; 
And spare me the fellow who piles up pel! 

In the face of the men he owes. 



A REVERIE AT EVENING. 85 

*'Far better the grip of the calloused hand 

He heartily puts in your own 
Than the stilted salute, too-carefully planned, 

Of the Beat on the social throne." 



And then, as the critical mood ran high, 

There came at the spirit's call 
A spotted procession that passed me by, 

And I angrily judged them all: 

The preacher who holily rolled his eyes 
At the greed of those sinful days, 

And humbly obeyed a command from the skies 
That he leave to accept a raise; 

The saint with the lean and dyspeptic shell 
Who prayed that it come to pass, 

The Lord would "save from a yawning hell 
The sinner who looked on the glass." 

I knew that his shaft was directed straight 
At the dear Old Man in the chair ; 

But he was above the mahgnant hate 
And the arrow broke in the air. 



86 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

The Old Man's pen was a knightly blade 
That never espoused the wrong; 

That never against the poor was arrayed, 
Nor truckled before the strong. 



* 



Those days have passed, with the boyish rage 
That tempest-like thrilled me through, 

Erasing the blots on my own life's page 
Provides me enough to do. 

But often I think as my pipe burns low 
Of him who was always mild — 

Who governed a strong mind's fiery glow 
With the heart of a little child. 

I see where the Old Man sits in his chair 
Till the sun's last rays are flown ; 

Peace lendeth a balm to the evening air 
And I fall asleep in my own. 



SONG FOR NICOTIA. 87 



SONG FOR NICOTIA. 

Sweet source of a thousand remembered delights 
And of pleasing companionships many, 

You have shortened my days and you've lengthened 
my nights, 
But I would not forsake you for any. 

How soothing your flavor that floats in the air 

And drives away grey melancholy, 
When lone in my chamber at night I compare 

The savorless fruits of my folly. 

Stern friends who desert when from wisdom I stray 

I find are a valueless dower ; 
Fond sweethearts a-many, like blossoms of May, 

Pour perfumes of bliss but an hour. 

So adieu to them all — save a lass may appear 

Who is worthy to share the devotion 
I give to thee always, Nicotia dear, 

Thou spring of the gentlest emotion. 

Sweet source of a thousand remembered delights, 
And of pleasing companionships many — 

You have shortened my days and you've lengthened 
my nights, 
But I would not forsake you for any. 



88 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



TO A BOYHOOD FRIEND. 

Lamb's gossip stands neglected by; 

The blaze leaps cheerily up the log, 
While in my cozy nook I lie 

And think upon thee, dear old dog. 

Dost thou recall, in that far place 

Where long time since we laid thee down, 

The stately walk — the madcap race — 
Thy too-fantastic dressing gown? 

And dost thou still with relish think 
Upon thy sober-comic pranks — 

How thou didst smoke, with knowing blink, 
Erect upon thy shaggy shanks? 

Methinks that sometimes in the spring, 
When apple-blossoms deck thy bed. 

Their blooms fine memories to thee bring 
Of woodland ways we loved to tread. 

And thou dost spy once more with me 
The dainty bluebells where they hide 

Beneath the giant oaken tree, 
With fragrant cowslips close beside. 



TO A BOYHOOD FRIEND. 89 

And haply, when the summer's heat 
Hath warmed the placid river through, 

In vagrant fancy dost repeat 
The merry games I taught to you. 

How well must thou recall the day 

The waters closed above my head, 
And thou didst fetch me safe away, 

As one recaptured from the dead. 

Thou dost remember, dost thou not, 

Our some-time playmate, little Jim? 
Dear laddie ! — I have not forgot — x 

With thoughts of thee mine eyes grow dim. 

Thou, too, art resting from thy play ; 

A deep and peaceful sleep is thine. 
I plod along the homeward way 

And do not murmur or repine. 

But sometimes, whiles I dimly pore 

Beneath the lamp's benignant beam 
Some favorite bit of bookish lore, 

I pause to nod — and doze — and dream. 

My narrow cell becomes a wide 

And lovely room ; two children fair 
Smile up to me from either side 

As if they had been always there. 



90 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

And then you come upon my view, 
As years ago you bounding came ; 

Thy deep-toned voice the voice I knew, 
Thy quick and eager eyes the same. 

I stroke thy head that thou dost lay 
With fond assurance on my knee. * 

Before me Httle Jim doth play, 
A child through all eternity. 

Then cometh one of angel grace ; 

At her white throat a jewel gleams ; 
Her beauty doth illume the place — 

The saintly lady of my dreams. 



Thus let me dream, nor not awake, 
So happy I in dreamland be, 

Where care is lost in Lethe's lake 
And visions fair encompass me. 



THE PARTNERS OF POVERTY FLAT. 91 



THE PARTNERS OF POVERTY FLAT. 

There is Molly, who started with me 

On a capital shockingly small ; 
Helen came, we divided by three. 

And by four with the coming of Paul. 

We have hopes, as what mortal has not ? — 

Of delights to be finally won ; 
We're expecting to "better our lot" 

As so many a mortal has done. 

We have youth, of all riches the best ; 

We have love and are grateful for that; 
Yet we're humanly hoping to test 

Something finer than Poverty Flat. 

If we were not the sense of the age 
Would accuse us of lagging behind ; 

So I'm writing this whimsical page 
To assure you we bear it in mind. 

But withal, when the day's in the bud, 
And the odor of spring's in the air, 

There's a spirit of bliss in the blood 
And our world is exceedingly fair. 



92 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

In the street it is restful and still 
Ere the rattle of traffic begins; 

'Tis the time when the masterful will 
Is asleep and at peace with its sins. 

From the view of the highway I turn 
To the sight of my babies asleep ; 

They have many a lesson to learn, 
They have many a duty to keep. 

As I write, the miraculous sun 

Has arisen in pride from the seas ; 

'Tis an omen of victory won 
By the grace of eternal decrees. 

It is well with today ; we are glad 
For the mercies past seasons begat; 

Though the morrow may prove to be sad, 
We are happy in Poverty Flat. 



THE RIVALS. 93 



THE RIVALS. 

The time is in March — in our temperate zone, 

When the seasons sit down — 
Old Winter and Spring, rival heirs to the throne — 

And they play for the crown. 

Old Winter comes blustering down on the gale 

From the icy northwest ; 
But he's bluffing on deuces and certain to fail, 

When he's put to the test. 

Young Spring saunters up from the tropical zone, 

And he merrily sings 
A fantastical air in a jubilant tone — 

He holds aces on kings. 

In the sheltering woods and along the south banks 

The first flowers lie low, 
All ready to leap to their places in ranks 

When the lingering snow 

Runs off to the creeks to go south for the summer. 

The dainty Spring beauty 
Peers up through the leaves to espy the newcomer. 

And delights in her duty. 



94 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

And it's little she recks of the chill wind that blows 

Through the branches above her, 
For her soul is athrill with the music that flows 

From the lips of her lover. 

She impatiently longs, with a burning desire, 

For her dearest of blisses — 
The embrace of her love and the masterful fire 

Of his passionate kisses. 

But here (as on previous occasions past number). 

Each with ardor aflame, 
The players the table with riches encumber — 

And love waits on the game. 

Old Winter, defeated, departs, and Spring, stirred 

By the prospect before him. 
Proclaims himself king, when the flowers, at his word. 

All arise and adore him. 



PAVORtTE BOOKS. 95 



FAVORITE BOOKS. 

When I began, a visionary boy, 
To follow Crusoe's story on the isle, 

So fearful was the tenseness of my joy 
That neither love nor duty might beguile 

My mesmerized attention from the page 

Where man triumphed o'er naked Nature's rage. 

In less delight, but having keener sense 
To note wherein the hero went amiss, 

I studied with an interest intense 

The thrill-compelling ventures of the Swiss ; 

Made pause, betimes, to mount the hero's throne, 

Recast his deeds and claim them for my own. 

Came Froissart then of high romantic air. 
Whose heroes strove for honor under arms 

Indifferent to weariness or care, 

Proclaiming each his lady's perfect charms ; 

At ease alike in castle or on plain, 

So he might couple glory with his gain. 

I hardly know when first I felt the spell 
Of Scotia's Prince of Singers, but it seems 



96 LIVING IN THE IVORLD. 

My memory links the Ayr with Little Nell 

Far down the misty highway of my dreams, 
Commingling fleeting happiness w4th tears — 
A heritage of fragrance for the years. 

The Book of Nature, bound between the skies, 
Whereof the countless pages are the days — 

I scanned its text with keen and reverent eyes 
Among the fields and in the woody ways ; 

Along the whispering river's winding rim 

My spirit rose in Earth's eternal hymn. 

'*Tis but a step from love of Nature's self 
To love of Nature's loveliest — her girls ; 

Ah, who but, taught by some entrancing elf, 

In Love's own Book has garnered wisdom's pearls? 

Unindexed joys and woes its pages throng — 

Blisses that burn and pangs that linger long. 

Romance and Youth departing in the night. 
The day returns to find the heart at rest ; 

The eager mind inquires of wrong and right, 
Delves into schemes and puts them to a test; 

Ponders the words of Sages So-and-So, 

On whence we came and whither we shall go. 



FAVORITE BOOKS. 97 

A fruitless task : I cease and turn aside 
To mingle with my brothers in the mart, 

Seeing how each to all is near allied, 
Feeling the pulse of ages in my heart. 

Around me sweep, intent upon the strife. 

The characters that throng the Book of Life. 



98 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



ODE TO THE GRAVE. 

Refuge of wounded hearts, 
Shield from misfortune's darts — 

Holding us all as one, 

Blind to what we have done — 
Cursing, caressing. 
Sinning, or blessing. 

Mother to the motherless, 

Father to the fatherless, 
Friend to the friendless ! 
Offering us endless 
Peace in thy solitude 
Where never sorrow's brood 

May break our rest — 

Offering us endless 
Sleep on thy breast. 

Sweet shall our slumber be 
Through time's infinity; 
Fairer than boreal light 
Our guardian angels bright. 
Banishing eerie 
Phantoms, and dreary. 



ODE TO THE GRAVE. 99 

Safe in thy company, 
Sure of thy sympathy, 
Glad to be quit of life, 
Shut of its toil and strife, 

Naked we come : 
Only our poverty 
We can bring home. 



100 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



MAKING HIS PILE. 

''Early and late he is working — 
Says that's his natural style; 

He wasn't cut out right for shirking, 
And they say he is making his pile." 

"Married, of course," I suggested, 

''With babies to climb on his knee?" 

"No ; too many dollars invested — 
He's never had leisure, you see. 

"No hand for sports — isn't active; 

And ask him to go to the play, 
And he'll say it's mighty attractive — 

He'd be glad to — on some other day. 

"And suppose you suggest that he's losing 
The joys that make living worth while, 
He declares your ideas are amusing 

And asks : 'Ain't I making my pile ? 

" 'No wife to dispute my dominion, 

No children to go the bad ; 
Give me cash, in my humble opinion. 

The best friend a man ever had.' 



MAKING HIS PILE. 101 

*'If you speak of the pleasure of giving, 

He puts on a cynical smile, 
And remarks that 'you'll learn more by living/ 
Poor fool ! — but he's making his pile !" 



102 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



THE NEW BABY. 

We got new baby up t' our house ; 
Corned last night, still's er mouse. 

Found it layin' up side my mother. 
Pa says 't's my 'ittle bwother. 

Pa says t' w'en th' baby gets old 
Es me 't won't mind any cold. 

But now th' doors must be kep' closed, 
Cos pore' 'ittle bwother's purt nigh fwozed. 

'Taint got no close ner any hair; 
Nothin' but des red anywhere. 

Eyes es red, too ; keeps 'm shut 
So's th' light won't hurt 'm, but 

Pa says 't in a day er two 

He'll open 'm des like me, er you. 

Pa says he rather had a girl, 
Reg'ler young Wisconsin pearl ; 



THE NEW BABY. 103 

But reckons he'll get a heap o' joy 
Out that 'ittle fweckled boy. 

Can't talk er nothin' ; des says "goo." 
Do' know 'f he means me er who. 

Spose he's talkin' t' Ma; Uke nuff 
Beggin' her fer cents 'n stuff. 

Jane Ann says 't she do' know 
'F she'll stay er 'f she'll go; 

Says my aunts 'n 'lations all 
Come a trapsin', big 'n small, 

Eatin' ev'thin' out o' sight; 
Keeps her cookin' day 'n night. 

Ma she's des 's white 's milk — 
Hand's des like a piece o' silk ; 

Says she's got one, two boys now. 
Pa says, "Yes, 'at's so, I vow !" 

Ain't got no name, pore 'ittle boy ! 
Er any ball, er book er toy ; 

'N Jane Ann says he's homely 's sin, 
'T nobody else 'd tooked him in. 



104 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Pore 'ittle bwother ; 't's des a shame 
'T he ain't even got no name ; 

Looks so tiny 'n so forlorn, 
Guess he's sorry 't he 's born. 



LIFE'S ''HOUR ER SO." 105 



LIFE'S "HOUR ER SO." 

Jane Ann says 't baby's dead — 
Says 't 'at's what Doctor said. 

Doctor corned here yis't'day 

'N Jane Ann says he's des gone 'way. 

Nen she cwied 's 'f she had 
Been doin' sumfin awful bad. 

What is dead, Jane Ann, sumfin fine ? 
Er is 't what makes ev' one cwyin' ? 

I ast her des Hke 'at 'n she 
Hugged 'n hugged 'n kisted me. 

Nen she up'n runned away, 

'At wasn't nice, now was it, say? 

Ma she told me 't this life 
'S mixted up 'ith joy 'n strife ; 

'T we 'd ought t' be 's good 
'N char't'ble 's ev' we could. 



106 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

So's 't when our time 'd come 

We'd des fly stwaight t' Jesus' home. 

Said when folks died they flied away, 
'N all 't loved 'm had t' stay 

'N wait a 'ittle hour er so, 
Nen they have t' die 'n go. 

How much is a hour er so ? 
Ma she said 't she do' know. 

I asted Pa 'n he des cwied 
'N said he wist 't he'd a died ; 

Said th' Lord 't gived us him 
Had took away our 'ittle Jim. 

How much is a hour or so? 
I wist you'd tell me 'f you know. 



JUST AN HOUR OF FUN. 107 



JUST AN HOUR OF FUN. 

What the soul o' man needs is an hour of fun, 
So we fiddle and sing when our labor is done; 
And we'd dance if our knees were as limber as when 
We went straying with Mary and Jennie and Ben. 

O we'll fiddle and sing 

Till the old house'U ring, 
And the pleasures we lack the old fiddle'll bring. 

All the flowers were fair in those happy old days, 

When Sage Lydia led us in botany's ways. 

Ah ! the games that Dan Cupid puts up on young 

men! — 
It is botany now — it was love-making then. 

So we fiddle and sing — 

O we fiddle and sing; 
All the dreams left behind the old fiddle'll bring. 

We've a short road behind and a long one ahead ; 
We're but few years alive and we're many years dead. 
Then let never a day be so hard or so long 
But you finish it up with a jolly old song. 

Yea we fiddle and sing — 

O we fiddle and sing ; 
When the old fiddle laughs we're as rich as a king. 



108 LIVING IN THE WORLD. 



BALLAD OF THE RHYMER. 

He never wrote a sonnet ; 

He had no wish to trv, 
But sang in homely fashion 

The dreams that passed him by. 

Enough for him the pleasure 

When Fancy's flowers bloomed, 
No matter what the measure 
His revery assumed. 

He sang of little children 
Beside their mother's knees, 

Of haggard, toiling millions 
Enslaved beyond the seas ; 

Of all the wee, wild creatures 
That throng the flowery fields ; 

Of hills whence Freedom's heroes 
Came home upon their shields ; 

Wherever dreams might lead him 
Or human feeling call — 

Along the sunny river, 
Beside the somber pall. 



BALLAD OF THE RHYMER. 109 

No intricate devices 

Of meter or of rhyme 
Beguiled his pen in writing 

The common songs of time. 

Rose then the learned critic, 

With countenance severe, 
And thrust aloft the volume 

Upon his gory spear. 

"How infinite a pity !" 

He melancholic cried, 
"Of all the formal measures 

But two are found inside. 

"Alas ! that ever mortal 

Should wander so astray; 
Thank God we live to teach him 

The literary way !" 

Afar upon the prairie, 

Within an humble cot, 
A weary woman sadly 

Reviewed her lonely lot. 

Beyond the gray horizon 

Dwelt happiness, she thought, 
And all the precious treasures 

Her hungry spirit sought. 



ilO LIVING W THE WORLD. 

Whileas she lingered, gazing 

Across the shoreless plain, 
She sang a simple ballad 
Of love that conquers pain. 

Then swift her mood was altered, 
Her spirit ceased to roam ; 

She saw with clearer vision 
The happiness of home. 

The song she sang had never 
Received the critic's praise, 

Had never stirred a scholar 
To rapturous amaze; 

But there upon the prairie 
Its melody could cure 

A human soul of sorrow 
And teach it to endure. 

Enough there are of masters 

To glorify the art ; 
Give me, O God, the power 

To heal the wounded heart. 



THE END OF IT ALL 111 



THE END OF IT ALL. 

Ah ! the end of it all — 

Of this life that we live ; 
Of the blows that we get 

And the blows that we give ; 
Of the joys and the griefs 

That to each of us fall — 
Blind humanity dreams 

Of the end of it all. 

The lover who yearns 

For affection denied ; 
The prince in his hall 

And the pauper outside ; 
The parent whose darling 

Lies under the pall — 
Each mournfully dreams 

Of the end of it all. 

Since God in His Love 

For His children denies 

This glimpse of the end 
To humanity's eyes, 



8 



11^ LIVING IN THE WORLD. 

Let each bravely answer 
Life's manifest call, 

And rely on the Lord 
For the end of it all. 



THE ISLAND RACES 



THE ISLAND RACES. 



MURDER IN THE PHILIPPINES. 

What news is this the lightnings hiss 

Beneath the western sea? 
Old Glory's sons have turned their guns 

On men who would be free? 

Old Glory waves above the graves 

Of that heroic band 
Who proudly bared their breasts and dared 

Defend their native land ? 

Our fathers keep a slumber deep, 
They may not know our shame — 

How Greed, arrayed as Love, betrayed 
The splendor of their fame. 

But you and I, can we defy 

The judgment of the years? 
Weigh well the thought time's test is not 

A greedy rabble's cheers. 



116 THE ISLAND RACES. 

My country, think that he must drink 
Who brews the bitter draught ; 

When we the cup to them hold up 
Not they alone have quailed. 

My brothers, stay, ere more you slay 
To swell your masters' gain : 

The land that breeds a tyrant bleeds 
Beneath that tyrant's chain. 

February, 1899. 



BALLAD OF CIVILIZATION. 117 



BALLAD OF CIVILIZATION. 

We are out to Christianize the island races, 

(And may the Lord have mercy on their souls !) 
For we'll put 'em willy nilly in the traces, 
And we'll work 'em till their sweat in rivers rolls. 
We are going to teach the savage ones among 'em 
how to pray — 
They will have to learn the motions if they can't 
be made to think ; 
We have got 'em by the collar and you hear me 
when I say 
That we'll lead 'em to the water and we'll also 
make 'em drink. 

You can preach until you wabble at the knees 

As to equity and like commercial drugs, 
But we're bound to save the blessed Filipees 
If we have to pump the beggars full of slugs. 

Trade is waiting for the signal from the fighting 
men ahead, 
And our missionary brethren are impatient for 
the fray; 
So we're going to pluck 'em living or we're going 
to plant 'em dead, 
For we never shirk our duty when it promises 
to pay. 



118 THE ISLAND RACES. 

They have gdl to get in line with modern ways, 

They must sow and reap and mine and buy and sell ; 
They will never see again the foolish days 
When a man could face the world with easy gaze 
If he owned a cot, a garden and a well. 

For the flying car of progress has descended on 
the land, 
Uncle Sammy has alighted and has told 'em 
what to do ; 
With a bible in his pocket and a rifle in his hand 
He has started 'em for heaven and he's going 
to see 'em through. 

March, 1899. 



THE BELLIGERENT. 119 



BALLAD OF THE BELLIGERENT CON- 
GRESSMAN. 

Men of us are shooting, in an isle across the sea, 

The people who inherited the land; 
Men of us are boasting, when the few survivors flee, 
A badly licked but plucky-hearted band. 

O a happy day for all of us, may we recall it long, 

When men who went to war to free a race 
Were bid, because the President was feeling good 
and strong, 
To bat our dusky brothers in the face. 

"Allies of the Army" when we met a common foe ; 

''Patriots who dared to make a fight." 
"Ignorant and savage" when the Spaniards had to 
go- 
Martyrs turned to monkeys in a night. 

So we bade them be submissive and to trust us 
for the rest, 
In our own benign and diplomatic style ; 
We would give them all the freedom that we 
thought was for the best. 
And — our guns would kill a nigger at a mile. 



120 THE ISLAND RACES. 

Having heard how Washington had fought a foreign 
yoke, 
And how he drove the EngHsh to the sea, 
When in money, men and metal he was always nearly 
broke, 
"I can do it," said the foolish FiHpee. 

But we mowed him down like barley with the 
vomit of our ships. 
Though the story he was game is no canard ; 
For we sent him to his Maker with "My coun- 
try !" on his lips — 
It was bloody, but we had to smash him hard ! 

For there is no other method to convince the man who 
dreams 
That God Almighty meant him to be free ; 
You can proclamate and argue through a dozen dozen 
reams — 
The gun's the thing that brings him to his knee ! 
So we'll hunt them in the valleys and we'll hound 
them in the hills. 
Till they crawl upon their bellies to our feet ; 
It may cost five hundred millions, but the people 
pay the bills — 
And a winning war will keep me in my seat. 

April, 1899. 



ECHOES OF THE WAR. 121 



ECHOES OF THE WAR FOR CUBAN FREE- 
DOM. 

THE CUBAN PATRIOT. 

Since slave first slew his slavish fears and dared his 

master's will defy, 
The smug have damned his cause with sneers, with 

inuendo and with lie. 

What time our fathers, face to face, with England's 

hired butchers fought, 
They too were named a "mongrel race, to little up 

from nothing brought." 

That reptile sneer is sped today at him whose breast 

for Cuba bleeds : 
I call him kinsman and I say he proves his manhood 

by his deeds. 

I care not whether white or black or mingled blood 

his arteries fills, 
Who tireless treads the thorny track that leads to 

Freedom's sacred hills. 



122 THE ISLAND RACES. 

When time the wounds oj war has healed, and grey 
obHvion hides his grave, 

His greatness then shall be revealed where Love lam- 
ents her nameless brave. 

MASON. 

A man is risen among the cold and bloodless crew in 

senate hall ; 
His voice is like the voice of old, when freemen burst 

oppression's thrall. 

Such words are his as Henry hurled defiant at the 

idiot king — 
A speech that rang around the world : forever may its 

echoes ring ! 

Too long, too long, the island's green ran red be- 
neath the Spaniard's blade ; 

Too long the groveling and the mean the Great Re- 
public's council swayed. 

Then William Ernest Mason came — electric, western, 

stalwart, free ; 
His utterance was a living flame that thrilled the land 

from sea to sea. 



ECHOES OF THE WAR. 123 

His war cry, like a lightning stroke, leapt vivid 

through the sleeping sky ; 
That hour a people's conscience woke — that hour saw 

Spain's dominion die! 

GOMEZ. 



To that high plane where Love enshrines his name 

who gave this nation life, 
Unerring Time's decree assigns the hero of a newer 

strife. 

His fight is that undying fight whose martyr roll is 

ages long — 
The ceaseless battle waged by right against the sway 

of cruel wrong. 

His arms are few, his purse is lean, the woods his tem- 
pled cities are ; 

His road is long, Death lurks between, but at the end 
shines Freedom's star. 

Of dauntless courage, splendid skill, unwearied pur- 
pose, noble mind, 

.His final years are Freedom's still; youth's roseate 
dreams are left behind. 



124 THE ISLAND RACES. 

One dear desire is his alone — whose fruit pray God he 

Hve to see — 
The hated arms of Spain o'erthrown, the land of his 

affection free ! 

March, 1899. 



SHOP BALLADS 



SHOP BALLADS. 



THE OLD FRAME SHOP 

I had no time for rhyming then, nor hardly knew that 

rhymes existed ; 
More useful tools than page or pen fell to my fingers 

gnarled and twisted. 

While sluggish neighbors, sleeping, snored, and pious 

maid prayed God to shrive her, 
Out through the old shop windows poured the music 

of my adze and driver. 

With jest and song we sped the days, save some grim 

greybeard shopmate carking, 
And nightly went our various ways — the old to bed, 

the lads out larking. 

Who thinks of fame when hot blood swirls and rushes 

through his arteries madly ? 
Who's young and meets with sparkHng girls but hails 

'em blithe and greets 'em gladly? 



128 SHOP BALLADS. 

Youth comes but once to mortal man (the gentler sex, 

they say, fares better) ; 
So frolic, youngsters, while you can ; you'll soon be 

bound in age's fetter. 

Then may you, chuckling, call back times when you 

cut many a caper frisky, 
And weave 'em into jovial rhymes, inspired, perchance, 

by pipe and whiskey. 



SA TURD A Y NIGHT. 129 



SATURDAY NIGHT. 

Machinery hadn't as yet appeared 

And men were rated men ; 
No pile of metal had yet been reared 

To do the work of ten. 

Before his block, from 7 to 6, 

The dusty cooper toiled, 
Pausing betimes for sundry kicks 

On heading timber spoiled. 

On Monday morn, with wages spent, 

And throat as dry as punk. 
Each roundly swore, with firm intent, 

He'd never again get drunk. 

Let others be fools, if so they chose. 

His folly was hurled afar ; 
"The man's an ass," said he, "who blows 

His dollars across the bar.'* 

Nowhere, I warrant, could any one find 

A soberer set than they ; 
A troublesome conscience faced each mind 

With scores that none could pay. 



130 SHOP BALLADS. 

So all week long their hammering rang 
Out through the windows old ; 

And many the jovial songs they sang 
And many the tales they told. 

For Toil, well fed, is as light of heart 
(And lighter, I think, of head) 

As Capital, dwelling alone, apart, 
By gold's exactions led. 

However that be, or false or true. 
When Saturday night came round, 

The Devil had labor enough for two 
Recovering captured ground. 

With cash in hand, our thirst came back — 
Old Nick looked out for that ! 

So Jim bought liquor for Joe and Jack, 
And Peter put up for Pat. 

A burly Celt refilled the bowls 

That never were empty, quite. 
Ah ! never were mortals with merrier souls 

Than ours on Saturday night. 

'Twas wrong ! all wrong ! I grant you that ; 

And never again shall I 
Touch glasses with Jimmy or Jack or Pat, 

As in the days gone by. 



SATURDAY NIGHT. 131 

Fm happy to say such sinful ways 

Have passed beyond our ken ; 
Machines are doing the work these days, 

And boys the work of men. 

It's proper enough the man of wealth 

Should buy his wine and drink; 
The man at the block must guard his health 

In order to work and think. 

Modern conditions confront him now ; 

His brain must needs be clear. 
The change may benefit him, though how, 

It doesn't as yet appear. 

Preaching again ! It's time I quit ; 

Preaching's but spinning a top. 
I merely intended to write a bit 

On Saturday night in the shop. 



132 SHOP BALLADS. 



THE JOURNEYMAN. 

Those days were the days when a cooper knew 

He was more than a cog in a wheel ; 
Then he merrily traveled the country through, 
And he flaunted the rose but never the rue, 
As the shops had plenty for all to do 

Wherever he made appeal. 
His wage was good and his arm was strong, 

And his soul was free from care ; 
So he sang at his toil the whole day long, 
The happiest heart in a rollicking throng, 

Finding the whole world fair. 

And on Saturday night, 
With the lasses bright. 

And the glasses clinking gay, 
The hours sped by 
Till the dawn drew nigh 

Ere he sought the homeward way — 
The dawn drew nigh 
In the eastern sky 

Ere he homeward bent his way. 



THE JOURNEYMAN. 133 

He had no wife and he had no child, 

Nor ever a home for long ; 
And the Parson told him his course was wild — 
That his age would taste like a stream defiled 
If he wandered on as a fool beguiled 

By the voices of drink and song. 
But his years were few and his blood was hot, 

And the lasses were fair and kind ; 
So he heard the Parson but heeded him not; 
And I venture to say that he clean forgot 
The good man's praise of the Godly lot 

And the joys of a pious mind. 

For on Saturday night, 
With the lasses bright, 

And the glasses clinking gay, 
The hours sped by 
Till the dawn drew nigh 

Ere he sought the homeward way — 
The dawn drew nigh 
In the eastern sky 

Ere he homeward bent his way. 



LOVE SONGS 



LOVE SONGS. 



SONG. 



Sweetheart of mine, I love thee only, 

Thou art the pearl of my desire ; 
When thou art gone, though I be lonely, 

Hope's promise fans Love's deathless fire. 

When thou art near life hath completeness, 
Care's frown forgot, fear's shadow flown ; 

Then all life's hours are rich with sweetness. 
For thou art mine and mine alone. 

What though the years their sorrows bringing. 

Some share allot to thee and me? 
Always my heart, in gladness singing, 

Shall praise God's grace that gave me thee. 



138 LOVE SONGS, 



MARY. 

Worldly gear is yours, 

Its pleasures I resign ; 
Heavenly joy's my share, 

With Mary's hands in mine. 

Threadbare is my coat. 

Its empty pockets flout me; 

Still do I rejoice 

With Mary's arms about me. 

The man to men unknown 
Their notice never misses; 

He finds a sweet reward 
In bonny Mary's kisses. 

The great from rank and gold 

Gray Death will shortly sever; 

Mary's love is mine 
Forever and forever. 



IN THE OTHER DAYS. 139 



IN THE OTHER DAYS. 

When hearts turn back to other days 

Where youth ran on in flowery ways, 

Tears blot the lines of Time's long scroll 

And silent sadness fills the soul. 

"The other days," when time was young. 

When gladness sang from every tongue — 

So fair a grace the vision wears 

That man forgets his present cares. 

Clearly before him doth arise 

A picture dear to boyish eyes ; 

A slender girlish figure stands 

Welcoming him with open hands. 

Within her eyes a light there shines 

Whose meaning he but half divines ; 

A reverent fear forbids the plea 

He longs to make on bended knee. 

Fate's hour flies. They lightly part, 

With sad-sweet yearning in each young heart- 

A dream, perhaps, of a distant land, 

Where two might wander, hand in hand. 

The years that pass, to girl and boy. 
Bring equal measure of pain and joy ; 



140 LOVE SONGS. 

He out in the world at life's behest, 

She sheltered still in the old home nest. 

Widely apart the paths they took ; 

Yet she, at home in her quiet nook 

Perchance, day-dreaming, may backward gaze 

To boyish homage of other days ; 

As oft, when the world frowns cold and grim, 

And the prize he seeks seems far and dim, 

The present fades and before his sight 

She stands as fair as she stood that night. 

Then time turns back and the fragrance rare 

Of her garden sweetens the heavy air; 

It beareth the penetrant, rich perfume 

Of her crimson rose tree's royal bloom ; 

The day departs, night's shades descend. 

Twilight and darkness subtly blend. 

And the words he breathes are a prayer of praise 

For a fleeting glimpse of the other days. 



A FAVOR. 141 



A FAVOR. 

O as sweet as the savor 
Of June by the river 

Is the thought of a favor 
Forgot by the giver. 

But the beauty above her 
Shall be forgot never, 

In the heart of her lover 
Forever and ever. 



142 LOVE SONGS. 



SHADOWS. 

O love of my heart 

In the days gone forever, 

Our paths He apart, 

We can ne'er meet again ; 
Yet you shall depart 

From my memory never — 

'Tis my pleasure in pain. 

Though years may prove true 

All the olden-time dreaming, 
The joy that we knew 

We can nevermore know; 
I'm longing for you 

And my tears they are streaming 

Where my Love lieth low. 

Long, long are the days. 

And the long nights how dreary, 
Since we stood where the ways 

Led us slowly apart. 
Mists that rise as I gaze 

Where you passed from me, dearie, 

Have their spring in my heart. 



SHADOWS. 143 



Could the years but return 
•That are past all recalling; 

Could the dust in thine urn 
Be restored to its throne! 

But O love! life is stern, 
And its shadows are falling 
Where I mourn you alone. 



lO 



144 LOVE SONGS. 



I MET A DAINTY LADY IN A WOOD. 

I have been stuffed of late with classic lays, — 
Stories of nymphs and dryads, and, by jingo! 

I was so won by Johnny Keats' ways 
That, though I simply loathe his Greekish lingo, 

I could not quit, but read with zeal unceasing, 

My new delight in every page increasing. 

(I like the savage lover Nature shows us— 
The lad who wars or woos with equal zest ; 

No coward swain regardful of his poses. 
But one who puts his fortune to the test 

Assured success will crown his undertaking, 

Or new loves rise what while the old are breaking). 

I met a dainty lady in a wood — 

That is to say, it seemed as if I met her, 

In Keats' book — a rose in solitude ; 

And sure I know I never shall forget her : 

In no way like the tricksy girls around us. 

Whose ultra-modest coquetries confound us. 



/ MET A DAINTY LADY IN A WOOD. 145 

Her glance the fires of ardent love revealing, 
Her rounded length reclined upon the sod, 

Her lyric speech for love's delights appealing 
Had power to make a courtier of a clod. 

Alas ! alas ! for these degenerate ages 

When nymphs are not, save in the poets' pages. 



146 LOVE SONGS. 



LOVE THAT LIVES FOREVER. 

Love that lives forever is a fantasy, I fear, — 
Sweeter is the passion that may quickly disappear ; 
Happy in the present I can yield without a tear 
The love that lives forever and a day. 

Love is as elusive as an echo ere it dies, 
Love is evanescent as the rainbow in the skies, 
Love deceives the happy-heart, the careless and the 
wise 
With vows to live forever and a day. 

Love is like the violet that ushers in the spring. 
Love is like the melody the birds of summer sing, 
Love is much too delicate and beauteous a thing 
To bide with us forever and a day. 



FRIVOLITY. 147 



FRIVOLITY. 

My pen sets out to sound the praise 

Of quiet and humility; 
To glorify the common phase 

Of well-behaved gentility, 

When, lo ! you trip before my gaze, 

Sweet morsel of frivolity, 
Leading my thoughts by pleasing ways 

Along the path of jollity. 

The Devil take the tiresome task 
Of teaching heathens piety ! — 

A savage race behind the mask 
Of civilized society. 

One perfect hour I choose to stroll 

Amid your charms' variety ; 
A glorious hour to sink my soul 

In passion's inebriety. 

Come then the smug and saintly style 
Of commonplace simplicity ; 

Beneath it all I'll wear a smile 
Thinking of our felicity. 



148 LOVE SONGS. 



I ASK NO ODDS OF MEN OR GODS. 

I ask no odds of men or gods, 

But walk my way serenely; 
This life's delight by day or night 

I dip and drink it keenly. 

I turn my back on what I lack, 
And clasp what stands beside me; 

For pocket lean and habit mean. 
Sure, love will never chide me. 

But if some time she tires of rhyme, 

To prosy comfort turning. 
Full well I know love's rosy glow 

In other breasts is burning. 

While youth endures a new love cures 
The heart that erst is breaking ; 

A faint regret may linger yet. 
Long-buried dreams awaking. 

But even so, need Julia know 

How ardently, aye madly. 
You sought the bliss of Susan's kiss 

And parted from her sadly? 



/ ASK NO ODDS OF MEN OR GODS. 149 

And though the pang may Hnger long 

Ere time the wound effaces, 
By Julia led your feet may tread 

Betimes in pleasant places. 

So ask no odds of men or gods, 

But seek what far surpasses — 
The priceless charms within the arms 

Of Nature's lovely lasses. 



150 LOVE SONGS. 



PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN. 

She is lithe, elastic, vital as the stallion of the plains ; 
In her bosom is the flaming of the fire that never 
dies. 
She would spur the blood to motion in a marble 
statute's veins 
With the throbbing invitation of her long and lan- 
guorous eyes. 

When she speaks a thrill runs through me as when 
Violino lures 
Nature's clear melodic voices from the palpitating 
strings ; 
I can hear the joyous music of June's woodland over- 
tures, 
And the melancholy minor that the wind of autumn 
sings. 

She is Nature's child and Nature gave her likeness 
to her child; 
On her brow the stamp of genius is irrevocably set ; 
In her heart the seasons follow — summer ardent, win- 
ter wild, 
And her conscious power crowns her with a regal 
coronet. 



SONG FOR CECILIA. 151 



SONG FOR CECILIA. 

The love that has guided my ardent pen 
Has pictured thy beauty for future men ; 
By the grace of the passion that thrills my heart 
Thou wilt always be charming as now thou art ; 
And in hearts to be a reflected glow 
Shall be proof, O my own, that I loved you so — 
Shall be proof, O my own, that I loved you so. 

In the years to come shall the tale be told 
Of a man and a woman in times of old 
Who loved with a love so deep, so vast, 
That Death with reverent footsteps passed, 
Forbearing to hide in oblivion's night 
The rose-red blossom of their delight. 
That men grown sad with the years might know 
How sweet was love in the long ago — 
How sweet was love in the long ago. 



SONGS OF THE CEDAR 



SONGS or THE CEDAR. 



ADDRESS TO CEDAR RIVER. 

Old Cedar, by your shady pools 

Where minnows hide and pickerels follow, 
A truant from the stifling schools, 

As fancy free as thrush or swallow — 
What happy hours have I reclined, 

A shy, day-dreaming lad, to ponder 
Upon the mysteries I might find 

Within the cloud-topped woods off yonder. 

The squirrel darting up his tree, 

I saw but dimly in my dreaming; 
Your placid waters, rolling free, 

A mighty sea were, to my seeming; 
Each gold-lipped lily near your marge, 

'Twixt wind and current lightly swaying, 
Became a splendid royal barge. 

Whereon were elves and pixies playing. 



156 SONGS OF THE CEDAR. 

What giants lurked beside your brim, 

Or met by chance in fierce contention 
In that far forest, dark and grim, 

I knew them well — but dared not mention. 
For men are dull and credit naught 

Not based upon material chances, 
And e'en the puling babes have caught 

The tendency to sneer at fancies. 

When my boy comes of proper age, 

He'll have no legend-killing teacher, 
Nor any use for printed page, 

But you shall be his book and preacher. 
So shall you, whispering where he plays, 

With many a pleasing secret store him, 
And lead his thoughts in flowery ways 

As you do mine and did before him. 



WITH MARY BY THE CEDAR'S SIDE. 157 



WITH MARY BY THE CEDAR'S SIDE. 

Wee singers in the rural shade 

Made glad the glowing country side, 
The woods their sweetest blooms displayed, 
What dreamy hours I fondly strayed 
With Mary by the Cedar's side. 

Sage Lydia ruled the floral jaunt 

But seldom closed her broken ranks ; 

Her power she had no wish to vaunt ; 

So I found oft a cozy haunt 

With Mary by the Cedar's banks. 

Though sober comrades all designed — 
Stern bent on learning Flora's arts — 

To make each flower that they might find 

An added treasure of the mind. 

To me all buds were Cupid's darts. 

Old Cedar, childhood's friend and guide, 

Safe confidant of boyhood's dreams, 
Glad witness of the lover's pride — 
Long years may sweethearts stroll beside 
Your beauteous borders, queen of streams. 



158 SONGS OF THE CEDAR. 



MORNING ALONG THE CEDAR. 

Let the laurels be worn where the fates may allot 'em ; 

As I lie on the bloom-bordered banks of this stream, 
Where the fish, like philosophers, loaf near the bottom, 

'Tis the choicest of luxuries merely to dream. 

Here the sod is as sweet as a flower queen's crown, 
And as fragrant as hope in the heart of a child ; 

Here the wandering waters run murmuring down 
And my soul is by vagabond fancy beguiled. 

What's the worth of the world to a man who despises 
Its contempt of the living, its praise of the dead ? 

Dearer far is the wood where the morning breeze rises, 
And in cool benediction strays over my head. 



WHERE CEDAR ROLLS HER TIDE ALONG. 159 



WHERE CEDAR ROLLS HER TIDE ALONG. 

Above the wintry winds that roar 

Among the snowy house-tops tall 
Visions of rural beauty soar, 

Voices of rustic minstrels call 
When lo ! 'tis June, the month of song, 
Where Cedar rolls her tide along. 

Winter is not * * * the waters sing 

Merrily down past field and grove ; 
From cup to cup, on tireless wing. 

Swiftly the eager wild bees rove ; 
In yonder maple, clear and strong, 
Red Robin trills a joyful song. 

The all-defacing hand of man 

Has passed this woodland Eden by ; 

No blot on Nature's perfect plan 
Appears before th' enraptured eye ; 

Clouds wall the lovely picture round, 

Guarding from man enchanted ground. 
11 



160 SONGS OF THE CEDAR. 

Dear woods, fair fields, sweet flowers that bloom 

In many a shy, secluded spot, 
Here in the distant city's gloom 

Thy gentle peace is not forget, 
Nor thou who sang thy cheerful song 
Where Cedar rolls her tide along. 



CITY AND RIVER. 161 



CITY AND RIVER. 

Aweary of the narrowness and bigotry of creed, 
Aweary of the spectacle of cruelty and greed, 
Aweary of the sorrowing of wrong-embittered need, 
My dreams are on a distant river's tide. 

Aweary of the hoUowness and vanity of town, 
Aweary of its mighty walls that far above me frown, 
Aweary heart and body of the cares that weigh me 
down, 
I turn, O mother Cedar, to your side. 

Your cooling lips shall kiss away the fever in my 

breast. 
Your rippling voices lull me like a Httle child to rest, 
And all my dreams shall glow again, the noblest and 
the best. 
In waves that shine across your sandy bars. 

Your beauty shall restore to me the bliss of other days. 
When Joy and I were intimates in dusky forest ways. 
And you and I at evening shall waft a prayer of praise 
For solitude, the silence and the stars. 



"And So We Stroll to Youth's 
Enchanted Land" 



'AND SO WE STROLL 
TO YOUTH^S ENCHANTED LAND; 



THE DANCE. 

Philosophy shall fascinate no longer, 
To fathom it I've nony more desire ; 

A pleasure that is humaner and stronger 
Is, romping with the children by the fire. 

The race of man goes on and on forever 
According to a good and proper plan ; 

I leave the search for reasons to the clever, — 
I'm going to be a lover while I can. 

The lamp is lit, the grate is redly glowing; 

The Baby sprawls upon a pillow near ; 
The Daughter and the Elder Son with knowing 

And eager smiles in front of me appear. 

The Mother, in an easy rocker reading, 
Upon my guests bestows a fleeting glance. 

In time to note the Son and Daughter pleading : 
"Come, Daddy, we are going to have a dance.'* 



166 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND.'* 

High honor for a better man than Daddy ! 

With dainty grace the lassie takes my hand ; 
A partner of his fancy mates the laddie, 

And so we stroll to Youth's enchanted land. 



TINY TIM. 167 



TINY TIM. 

My heart is opened wide this night, 

And through its door Love's fountain streams; 

I slept, and to my troubled dreams 
There came an angel shining bright. 

A little child that smiled on me. 

And bade me rise and took my hand, 
And showed God's goodness on the land 

And all His mercy upon the sea. 

The stars that gleamed so far and cold. 
The green grain waving in yonder field, 
To my lean spirit new grace revealed — 

The grave, mysterious grace of old. 

For I was filled with evil lust 

Ere ever that dear child-angel came ; 
And Love was but an empty name. 

And Faith was but forgotten dust ; 

And Hope ? What hope could mortal save 
With youth and youth's delusions past. 
But selfish comfort, and at last. 

Unbroken slumber in the grave. 



168 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

For I had fed myself alone, 
And I had pleasured on others' ill : 
Though Friendship flowered on plain and hill, 

Its fragrance was to me unknown. 

And time was heavy upon m.y head, 
And loneliness and grief were mine — 
A secret grief that makes no sign, 

A loneliness of throttling dread. 

And so I laid me down and so 

To me God's little lambkin came — 
Came in and thrilled to living flame 

Loves turned to ashes long ago. 

And he was wizened and weak and wan, 

And he was but a little child ; 

But he was like a Mother mild, 
And Christ-like fair to look upon. 

And O the joy I got of him — 

The widening gladness that is mine. 
The love fraternal, half divine * * '♦^ 

God's blessing on you ! Tiny Tim. 



THE VILLAGE LAD AT PLAY. 169 



THE VILLAGE LAD AT PLAY. 

What matter that his trousers bear 

A patch on either knee, 
Since roses in his round cheeks glow, 
While sparkling glance and light laugh show 

A spirit blithe and free ? 

With grimy hand he knuckles down 

To let a marble fly, 
Intently scans the sphere's quick flight 
And chuckles in his deep delight 

When luck approves his eye. 

No mercenary gamester he, 

That craves a rival's blood ; 
As quick to share Dame Fortune's smiles 
As e'er he is to court her wiles — 

A gentleman in bud. 

He has not heard the city's far, 

Insistent voices call ; 
Yet not a bird in wood or field 
Nests long from his keen gaze concealed, — 

He knows and loves them all. 



170 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND. 

No cares oppress or sorrows dim 

The joys his projects bring: 
For all life long or for a day 
I'd rather be that boy at play 
Than President or King. 



POVERTY'S CHILDREN. 171 



POVERTY'S CHILDREN. 

Some time when the Wandering Jew comes around, 
We shall borrow a part of his treasure of gold ; 
Then we'll charter the Charity, fairest of ships, 
And set off on the longest and rarest of trips. 
When we've crowded the uttermost nooks in the hold 
With the daintiest sweets to be anywhere found, 
And the loveliest toys that the world can afiford, 
We shall take all of Poverty's children aboard. 
Then when breezes blow fairly and breezes blow 

strong, 
We shall sail down to sea with a jolly old song. 
O, the babes of the poor, with the sorrowful eyes, 
Where the fingers of Want have imprinted their sign — 
I know what wee playthings you long for and lack ; 
How the little eyes see and the little hearts crave ; 
And I know how sad tears wet the mother's pale 

cheeks 
While she stills on her bosom the little one's sighs. 
Be patient, O children, be patient and brave — 
God loves you — God loves you. And some time, my 

dears. 
Some time, when we've waited through all the long 

years — 
When we've patiently waited in hunger and cold, 
He will send us the Jew with the treasures of gold. 



172 ''YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 



PAUL'S CELEBRATED RACER. 

The cutter stops before our door and Paul assumes the 
lines, 

While Helen, from the seat behind, to nervousness in- 
clines ; 

She knows the cutter's wobbly and she knows the 
driver's gay, 

And she has a grave suspicion that the horse will run 
away. 

Their mother tucks them snugly in and kisses each 

goodbye, 
Then bids the horse be careful, with a twinkle in her 

eye. 
The driver shouts : "All ready !" with a flourish of his 

whip, 
And ofi the cutter dashes at a very lively clip. 

We hardly reach the boulevard (a name our street 

enjoys) 
When Paul espies ahead of us a lively team of boys. 
These draw the Lady Ruthie in the driver's rival's 

sleigh, 
And prance along before us in a tantaHzing way. 



PAUL'S CELEBRATED RACER. 173 

I hear my driver mutter, "Well, I like that fellow's 
face;" 

*'Go on!" — to me — "go lively now, we're going to 
have a race !" 

With trot and pace and gallop and with sundry slip- 
pery leaps, 

Paul's celebrated racer close upon his rival creeps. 

"Go on !" — he shouts — "go lively Pop ; we'll beat those 

plugs out yet ; 
We'll teach that stuck-up Lady Ruth some things she 

won't forget." 
He had no sense of mercy on his puffing, panting dad ; 
And you bet I had to pass 'em to escape his handy gad. 

But, alas for vengeful vanity, by fickle maid begot ; 

No sooner had we passed 'em than we struck an icy 
spot, 

Whereon I slipped and scrambled till, with one tre- 
mendous jump, 

Paul's celebrated racer hit the pavement with a thump. 

His cutter stopped abruptly, and his rival, passing by, 
Avowed that he was ready for another friendly try. 
But I, rising with an effort, gave that youth to un- 
derstand 
That thereafter I was out of any races he had planned. 



174 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND:' 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. 

Under the broad elms the second battle of Plevna 
Pass was fought. History was reversed there. Osman 
Pasha was vindicated — the Cossack put to rout. There 
• the crescent waved in triumph above the cross. 

West of the broad walk that divided the ground into 
equal parts was the favorite resort of the marble play- 
ers. There Pat M. and Johnny L. waged long and 
doubtfully the contest that seemed never to be decided. 
For they were evenly matched at marbles. Never was 
such a daring plumper as Pat, nowhere a player the 
equal of Johnny in all the delicate diplomacies of the 
game. Neither could wholly exhaust the resources of 
the other, though, as we recall it, the duel, which began 
in the primary, ran on through the intermediate grades, 
the grammar school, and up into the high school. 

At either of the rear corners of the square brick 
building stood a barrel — usually half full of rain water. 
Shall we ever forget that day, in the afternoon recess, 
when Larry D. was larruped by the principal for play- 
fully dropping little Teddy V. into one of those barrels 
head first? And how Teddy scrambled out, gasping 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. 175 

and white-faced, but belligerent? As well expect one 
to let slip out of memory the place where he learned 
to swim — or where he hooked his first pickerel. 

To-day the ground wears an altered appearance. 
The square brick is replaced by a more imposing crea- 
tion of rectangles and divers architectural usurpations. 
The elms are gone. Where their broad shade invited 
us to dreams or play the sun beats down upon a cin- 
dered surface that grates unpleasantly under foot. 

The crab apple thicket that stood half a square to the 
east has been leveled to make place for a house, a dis- 
mal-seeming pile, where some retired farmer, moved 
to town, spends the days computing the interest on his 
mortgages — a sorry substitute — with houses so nu- 
merous and crab thickets so few. Never shall that 
rare perfume of a hundred trees in blossom be wafted 
through the open windows on any future spring after- 
noon. Not hereafter shall any lad and lass, silently, 
athrill with the precious fervor of young love, bear 
thence the fragrant branches — spring's symbols. 

The school that is now is not our school. Ours are 
the older, happier scenes — the days compact of fun and 
fancy — the light laughter and the hidden high aspira- 
tions undertaken in Her name. Ours for to-day and 
for all the years are 

12 



176 ''YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

THE DREAMS OF CHILDHOOD. 

His school is old, its rooms are small ; 

Each ancient desk displays 
On top or side some labored scrawl 

That tells of other days. 

Here Jones, who quit in '63, 
Perchance when tasks were dry, 

Has left a carven legacy — 
A sprawling letter "L" 

The laddie learns how Jones, who "bled 

To put the rebels down," 
Came home a bearded man and wed 

The pretty Inez Brown. 

There Thornton once, when lessons palled, 

And duty roved afar. 
His own and Nell's initials scrawled 

Around a doubtful star. 

Tradition tells how Thornton fell 

Within the battle's tide ; 
Of how they bore the news to Nell, 

And how she, grieving, died. 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. Ill 

Here Wilson sat, whose young delight 

Was piracy at sea; 
Alas ! for mocking time's despite, — 

A pious preacher he. 

So every desk its lesson keeps. 

Each mark romantic seems ; 
The drowsy hour that onward creeps 

Invites to idle dreams. 

Eftsoon the boy is grown a man, 

His years of play are flown ; 
Has met what foes opposed his plan 

And left them overthrown. 

The lass he, blushing redly, eyes 

With fond but furtive gaze. 
Has glorified his earthly skies, — 

He wears the lover's bays. 

Sail far, O child, on Fancy's lake, 

While happiness is new ; 
The after years can never take 

These memories from you. 

The plans that gild your youthful dream 

Mayhap will never flower ; 
But o'er your darkest day shall stream 

The radiance of this hour. 



178 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND:' 

The dreams you dream are dreams men knew 
What time the earth was young; 

The song the springtime sings to you 
Has been to billions sung. 

All these have sped their mortal day 

Of jollity or care, 
And gone upon the distant way 

That ends — we know not where. 

So do you pause, O child of mine, 

To dream a little while ; 
Draws near the hour you must resign 

What pleasures now beguile. 

Somewhere beyond the schoolhouse walls 

Cares wait, a grievous throng; 
Somewhere your manhood's mission calls, 

And you must bear it long. 

But oft, as griefs oppress your mind. 

These dreams of youth will rise ; 
The weary world will seem more kind, 

Love's glow will light the skies. 

Under the broad elms a battle was fought ; it has no 
place in history, and doubtless is forgotten save by a 
small group of the participants, who survive, widely 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. l79 

scattered, yet not forgetful of the pleasant days passed 
in the little village school. It has been a fancy of mine 
to preserve for future generations of boys in that 
school the story of 

THE BATTLE OF LA PORTE. 

'Twas while the Turks at Plevna Pass 

Before the Russians fell, 
And while the savage Cossacks stormed 

On bastion and fort, 
There came to pass the famous joust 

Whereof I mean to tell — 
Now known in local annals as 

The battle of La Porte. 

Four days the leaders argued for 

Positions on the ground ; 
They talked the question pro and con 

On playground, step and stile. 
I heard it all but did not speak ; 

With dignity profound, 
I sat among them like a sphinx 

And smiled a deadly smile. 

At last they drew up articles 

And specified a day 
When Thompson's Turks should measure steel 

With Taylor's Russian band. 



180 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

Thereon the generals chose their aides 

And captains for the fray, 
While lumber merchants wondered why 

Were laths in such demand. 

The Russian troops, full forty strong, 

Drew up beneath the elms ; 
They were indeed a mighty host, 

An awe-inspiring sight ; 
But we, the Turks, were valiant, too, 

With feathers in our helms, 
And we opined that we could make 

A very pretty fight. 

No ancient knights that Froissart knew 

Had armour such as ours ; 
No ancient armies ever bore 

So many kinds of arms. 
To classify our various shifts 

Were far beyond my powers ; 
Each warrior felt that he, at least, 

Was safe from battle's harms. 

My own equipment, I may well 

Remember it for long; 
I planned it gayly, as became 

So valiant a lord. 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. 181 

I wrought upon it many days 

To make it light and strong, 
Although be sure I felt no need 

Of armour save my sword. 

A baseball mask adorned my face, 

A catcher's pad my back ; 
My sword-arm sleeve was padded thick 

With shavings from the mill ; 
My cap was full of feathers, but 

Alas ! when Taylor's whack 
Came down I saw a million stars, 

And seem to see them still. 

"Huzza!" the Russian leader cried, 

"Now show them what you are !'* 
They started and we nerved ourselves 

To meet the fearful shock; 
The air was rent with mingled cries 

Of "Allah !" and "The Czar !"— 
Our spearmen split their fierce assault 

As water splits on rock. 

The foemen, in a double line. 

Swept past on either side ; 
Then wheeled and, charging back again, 

Our swordsmen bore the brunt 



182 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

Like heroes. "Hold your ground, my boys !" 

Our noble leader cried. 
They strove like demons — all in vain ; 

They could not pierce our front. 

With thrust and sweep and mighty slash, 

The Russians forced the fight; 
But still we gave them steel for steel, 

Still fought them hand to hand. 
Our chivalry that day must break 

The Russian monarch's might 
For history, for honor, 

For home and native land. 

Swords clashed above the mangled corse 

Of many a hero dead ; 
The wounded lay like autumn leaves 

Upon the bloody plain ; 
Full many a hero kept the light 

Whose every artery bled, 
And often battered wrecks arose 

To shout and fight again. 

Night's shades advanced with neither side 

Desiring yet to yield ; 
Outnumbered, smitten front and rear, 

We faced a sure defeat, 



UNDER THE BROAD ELMS. 183 

When re-enforcement, Mullan's guards, 

Came bounding on the field, 
Whereat the Russians' raging front 

Began a slow retreat. 

Each man of Mullan's giant guards 

A massive cornstalk waved, 
The roots whereof enmeshed at least 

A quart of slimy mud; 
They rushed upon a stubborn group 

That still our fury braved 
And every time a cornstalk fell 

We heard a soggy thud. 

The Russian army's slow retreat 

Became a fearful rout ; 
We trailed their colors angrily 

And flung our own on high. 
Returning weary from pursuit 

With many a joyful shout, 
We marked their dead with pitying glance, 

Our own with solemn sigh. 

But O for ancient chivalry, 

That died with ancient kings ! — 
How too humiliating were 

The many bitter broils — 



184 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

(So clearly all those shameful scenes 
My memory backward brings) — 
When that our slain arose to claim 
A portion of the spoils. 



A FROLIC AT THE FORD. 185 



A FROLIC AT THE FORD. 

Geography was horrible ; the sweat — we called it 

that- 
Bespoke a common misery when Billy signaled Pat, 
Two stubby, grimy fingers uplifting on the sly ; 
Thereat a wink significant distorted Patrick's eye. 

Then Billy turned to Cummins, and Harvey, and 

De Pew, 
To each in turn displaying the grimy fingers two. 
And lastly condescended, while the others winked in 

glee, 
To show the mystic symbol to the least of all — to me. 

O ecstasy transcending whate'er the future stored, 
When Billy bade me join him for a frolic at the ford ! 

The hours till noon slunk by as if they knew we wished 

them past; 
It seemed as though they'd never go — they did, of 

course, at last — 
And O how cool the water was, and O how sweet the 

joy 



186 ''YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LANDr 

That filled and thrilled the bosom of each sweaty 

little boy, 
When he had hung his trousers on the nearest handy 

bough 
And shut his lips and held his nose and dove to "show 

y' how." 

We ducked and splashed and wrestled, we floated, 

raced and tread, 
And Billy flopped his feet aloft while standing on his 

head; 
De Pew had brought up bottom from the center of the 

pool. 
When Harvey said he reckoned it was time to go to 

school. 

"Gee whiz !" says Billy, first to quit, "that's something 
I forgot ; 

An' as I live ! my breeches are twisted in a knot !" 

Each rushed ashore and scurried to where his gar- 
ments hung. 

Then sudden imprecations arose from every tongue. 

While we had wooed the cooling stream, some envious 

sneak had gone 
And tied our shirts and trousers so we couldn't get 

'em on. 



A FROLIC AT THE FORD. 187 

"WeVe late," says Billy. "Then," says Pat, "just take 

your time to dress ; 
We'll fix it so's to wander in at afternoon recess ; 
An' each o' y' must gather a bunch o' purty flowers 
An' give 'em t' the teacher er she'll keep y' after 

hours." 

The teacher worked for slender pay, so far as money 

went ; 
She prayed and flayed and pardoned and seemed to be 

content, 
And when a boy that loved her contrived to let her 

know, 
She looked as if her gratitude was going to overflow. 

I guess that she, — no matter what * * * when 
we six boys marched in, 

Each one of us a-grinning from eyebrows down to 
chin, 

And stopped in turn before her desk and laid our flow- 
ers down, 

We saw two tears start sudden in the middle of her 
frown. 

As I, the last and least of all, went by, with hair askew, 
She stooped and said: "I love you, boys, no matter 
what you do." 



188 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

"These flowers," whispered Harvey, "are not so bad a 

plan." 
"She solid gold," said Billy; "she ought 't been a 

man !" 



IF I COULD BE A BOY AGAIN. 189 



IF I COULD BE A BOY AGAIN. 

I'd like to be a boy again and run away from school, 

And go to Knowles' orchard, where the breeze was al- 
ways cool. 

Where flowers grew profusely, and every air was 
sweet, 

And where the striped pippins made you eat and eat 
and eat. 

With Cummins and with Harvey and McFadden and 

De Pev/, 
I'd skip away at noontime, as we were used to do ; 
And say! we'd make the farmer boys hunt cyclone 

caves and quake 
By setting up as pirates on Quackenbush's lake. 

Or, we'd play that we were miners and that Big 

Creek's shining sands 
Were monstrous heaps of virgin gold laid open to our 

hands. 
The hours they'd fly like minutes, and the minutes, — 

well, my friend. 
They'd go so fast you couldn't see where they'd begin 

or end. 



190 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND:' 

And when we'd straggle home at night, we never 

would forget 
To notice if our shirts were straight, and if our hair 

was wet, 
And if our coats had sand on, and if our shoes were 

dry, 
And if our backs were blistered, — you know the reason 

why. 

If I could be a boy again and run away from school, 

I'd take my brother's old high wheel, in spite of fath- 
er's rule, 

And just at afternoon recess I'd make the boys feel 
thin 

By riding slowly past 'em, with a calm, superior grin. 

Though I could make a longer jump and run as fast 

as he, 
And in swimming or in punching he was nowhere 

near to me, 
When I would ask to ride his wheel, he'd get revenge 

for all 
By saying he'd be glad to, but alas ! I was too small. 

That old high wheel, how often have I longed to sit 
astride 



IF I COULD BE A BOY AGAIN. 191 

Its slim and slippery saddle and have turned away and 

sighed, 
And looked at my velocipede with dark and vengeful 

If I could be a boy again, I'd ride that wheel or die ! 



13 



192 . "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 



JUST ONE MORE GAME. 

Whoever has been a Hvely boy 

Is Hke enough to know 
How very, very hard it was 

To leave the game and go, 
When Httle brother pulled your sleeve 

And said you'd better quit, 
As you had got the cow to milk 

And kindling wood to split. 

Remember it ? Of course you do. 

And how you there agreed 
That you would take the whipping. 

If whippings be decreed ; 
And how that he should certainly 

Be cleared of any blame. 
If he would only stay until 

You'd play another game. 

"Another game" — Ah! mighty well 

You recollect that phrase ; 
How vividly it summons back 

The scenes of other days. 



JUST ONE MORE GAME. 193 

When Jimmy Wait and Roger Brown, 

Beside the railroad track, 
Contributed their marbles 

To your capacious sack. 

And how through tears that choked your voice, 

And pattered on the floor, 
You later told your father dear 

You'd loiter nevermore ; 
And how (alas ! that ever boy 

Should be so lost to shame !) 
The next day found you pleading still 

For "just another game." 



194 ''YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 



TO ONE NEW IN THE WORLD. 

Few words, my lad, but welcome warms them all ! 

You came not like the wayside waif, unsought ; 
We watched the path and harkened for your call, 

And now we ask, what message have you brought ? 

For you what plans has Mistress Fortune laid ? 

Your hands do time and circumstance prepare 
To hold the plow, the pen, the ready blade ? 

To smite the savage or caress the fair? 

A pretty theme for speculative schemes. 
Your flower-like face within the fleecy fold; 

Dark eyes that hide dim, embryonic dreams ; 
A song unsung, a manuscript unrolled. 

I hear men say it is a selfish act 

To call into an overcrowded race 
A conscript soul by fame nor fortune backed ; 

My answer is the smile upon your face. 

Your trust, at least, is mine without a flaw ; 

The love I give, that love you do repay ; 
So hand in hand, obedient to the Law, 

Let you and I proceed upon the way. 



THE BABIES' TANDEM TOUR. 195 



THE BABIES' TANDEM TOUR. 

Fair Helen holds the handle-bars — her happy daddy's 
hands ; 
The laddie, perched behind her, it would do you 
good to see. 
Then off they go a-touring through many foreign 
lands 
Upon the family tandem, viz. : your humble servant's 
knee. 

Through By-Low-Town and Cradle Cove they leisure- 
ly proceed ; 
They view the pleasant scenery, they hear the local 
lore — 
How giants thrill these quiet spots with many an awful 
deed ; 
How fairies all the playthings of the sleeping babes 
explore. 

From time to time a robber band appears on either 

side ; 

In husky tones they hail us from a thicket or a glen. 

And gracious me ! you ought to see the fearful pace we 

ride; 

Not even Mr. Zimmerman could travel with us then. 



196 ''YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

The roads we know are always smooth, as roads 
should always be, 
The places that we visit we have visited before ; 
But that is no objection, as you easily could see, 

If you should hear the tandem team appeal to me for 
more. 

When we have wheeled past villages and cottages and 
farms, 
We stop at last beside a fence to watch some funny 
sheep ; 
Then Paul's eyes close and he falls ofif into his mother's 
arms, 
While Helen drops the handle-bars and cuddles up 
to sleep. 



WINDY-PANTS'' AND ''JELLY -FACE." 19: 



WINDY-PANTS" AND "'JELLY-FACE." 

Whiles I watch my pipe-wreaths soar, 

Meditating on the day, 
Comes a rat-tat at my door," 

And I hear a small voice say : 
"Daddy, here's your Httle pards ; . 

Mother says we're in disgrace." 
Enter then the budding bards, 

"Windy-pants" and "Jelly-face." 

Paul at six is lithe of limb. 

Elfin-eyed and full of smiles; 
Mother gave her grace to him, 

Gave him all her pretty wiles. 
Just behind Paul, tiny Tad 

Flings his sire a sturdy frown: 
Paul reflects the country glad. 

Brother, the defiant town. 

Stern the Court as Court can be : 
Paul with laughter, Tad a-pout. 

Climbing up on either knee. 
Tell me how it came about. 



198 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND:* 

I can see that, front and rear, 
Holes in Paul's attire abound, 

Very much as, yester-year, 
Holes in other breeks were found. 

Brother's crime, the Court divines, 

Has to do with Mother's jam * 
On his cheeks the tell-tale signs 

Hint the wolf within the lamb. 
Bit by bit the story grew, 

How the lad and laddie sinned ; 
Then, as silence hushed the two, 

Lo, the shameless Justice grinned ! 

Boys are boys, to-day as when 

Greybeards played forgotten games ; 
Judge and solemn Deacon then 

Went by less imposing names. 
So, in my two partners small, 

Gayly I my youth retrace. 
Chuckling when I hear them call: 

"Windy-pants!" and "Jelly-face!" 



FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD. 199 



FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD. 

Willing sacrifice, sympathy, pleasure — all blend 
With the magic of love in the gentle word friend. 

The friends of old age are not many ; 'tis fate 

That though many come early, but few remain late. 

Other ties take the place of the first in the heart, 
And the friends, half unconsciously, wander apart. 

Yet the few that are steadfast you feel you can trust 
Until day dawns no more and the stars turn to dust. 

But the friendships of childhood are rich and as pure 
As the best that the future shall prove to be sure. 

The birds that are nesting in yonder low tree, 
They callmy wee laddie away from my knee ; 

And, as oft as he seeks them, through all the day long, 
They pledge him their love in the merriest song. 

His savage cloth dog, that by day finds delight 
In putting his timid pet lambkins to flight — 



200 "YOUTH'S ENCHANTED LAND." 

This terrible beast, when the shadows creep down 
From the skies in the east to envelop the town, 

Stands guard at his pillow, a sentinel bold, 
That a mischievous fairy would fear to behold. 

Right well doth he know, as he sinks into sleep. 
What a vigilant watch his protector will keep ; 

And the rubber doll cuddles up close in his arms, 
Full sure they are safe from the fearful alarms 

That sometimes arouse them, all trembling with fear, 
In the thought that a hideous ogre is near. 

For it happens, sometimes, that the dog runs away, 
And he cometh not home at the close of the day. 

Then my little one prays that his Lord will forefend 
What dangers he fancies may threaten his friend ; 

While the father bird, snug in his nest in the thorn. 
Stands guard for the fickle cloth dog till the morn. 

Though sorrow will come, as it comes to us all, 
It is sure that, whatever disasters befall — 

Whatever of loss from his life may ensue, 
These friends to the end will be tender and true. 



Of a Day That is Dawning 



or A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



There was never a mortal yearning for the Hfe that is 

yet to be, 

There was never a suppHcation arose to the silent 
sky, 

But the essence of God was in it, — the spirit of land 

and sea, — 

The divinely spoken assurance that nothing can ever 

die. 

There was never a mortal yearning but it rose from 
the hidden springs 
In the heart of the All-Creator, the ruler of time and 
space ; 
And the cry of the blindest human for the bliss of the 
future rings 
Increasingly up the ages, the path of the rising race. 

There was never a supplication that sprang from the 
lips of man 
But it told of the leaven working in the vessel of 
pregnant clay ; 



204 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 

And in none of the younger epochs since the rise of 
the race began 
Has the passion of men so centered on the ultimate 
perfect day. 

I perceive that the schemes you follow are many and 
ill agree ; 
That you pause in the joy of living to throttle and 
scourge and maim, 
To the end that your stubborn brothers shall see as the 
Faithful see, 
And shall humble themselves at the altar of the God 
of an empty name. 

Though the law is as music in silence or a mountain 
alone in a plain, 
Man has gleaned of its glorious message but an in- 
finitesimal trace ; 
After numberless centuries pleading for impossible 
personal gain, 
He shall quit toil at even rejoicing in the grave's 
inexpressible grace. 

Not the pangs that we name dissolution, nor the shad- 
ow of infinite woe 
Shall forever conceal from his vision the fact that the 
race ascends 



OF A DAY THA T IS DA WNING. 205 

In the multiple lives of its units ; — he shall see and be 
happy to go 
Where the individual impulse with the source of its 
being blends. 



206 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



SONG OF REVOLUTION. 

Who would not give his Hfe to see 

The race advance in kindly feeling; 
The despot shorn, the slave set free, — 

God's love in mortal man revealing? 
Who rates his hour o' life so high 

That Woe's appeal he hearing heeds not? 
What heart when Sorrow's wailing cry 

Its armored gate beseiges bleeds not ? 

Old wrongs, old griefs, old days depart, — 

The old dark days of man's despairing: 
New motives thrill the quickened heart, 

New love of man for man declaring. 
No more the bondmen cringing crawl 

Beneath the lash like driven cattle ; 
The new-born freemen fight and fall 

Or win their own in righteous battle. 

No more in vaunting Pride's crusade 
Can deathless glory come with dying; 

The new time's hero draws his blade 
Where Freedom's holy flag is flying. 



SOm OF REVOLUTION. M 

Hail! splendid dawn of nobler times; 

Hail ! sun of hope in heaven ascending ; 
Hail! Revolution's cure for crimes, 

The chains of every tyrant rending ! 



14 



^08 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



EVOLUTION. 

The mists of superstitious fear dissolve ; 

No more do I lament a fallen race. 

I see that man forever tireless climbs, 

A discontent divinely sprung his spur, 

Dynamic aspiration in his soul, 

Guiding him through the gloom toward the light. 

Silent I sit within my wayside hut: 

The groans of hapless millions haunt my ears, 

My eyes behold the sorrows of a race : 

Silent I sit, unawed by sound or sight. 

Aware that this imperishable dust, 

Its thousand-halted pilgrimage at end. 

Shall share the bliss of Life's supreme estate. 



IN THE GREEN OF OUR LEAF. 209 



IN THE GREEN OF OUR LEAF. 

Lo, the race marches on to the measure 

Of the music that swells through the spheres ; 
Long gone is the Goddess of Pleasure, 
With her trappings of poisonous treasure, 
To the graves of dead years. 

Lust was queen at Time's morn for an hour 

In luxurious splendor supreme; 
Love has brought us a worthier dower 
And she leads us with tenderer power 

To a knightlier theme. 

Love calls, and the listening nations 
Learn the truth from her clarion voice; 

Ardent souls in all civilizations 

Shall redeem us through Love's ministrations 
And all mortals rejoice. 

Having youth with its promise of gladness, 
Facing age with its menace of grief, 

It were folly supremer than madness 

Did we dully cohabit with sadness 
In the green of our leaf. 



210 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 

What is life and what death and what sorrow 
That the heart of a man should bemoan ? 

Have we now and still eager to borrow ? 

Live to-day ! Let oblivion's to-morrow 
Have a care for its own. 

What is fame that ambition, desiring 

Its approval, should sacrifice all? 
Unto Love (with nor doubting nor tiring, 
As the crown of all glory) aspiring, 
Let us march to the pall. 

Love for all of humanity's creatures. 

Yea, a love that is proof against fears ; 
So our thoughts that survive shall be teachers 
And our deeds be the text of Love's preachers 
Through the infinite years. 



A CRY IN THE DARKNESS. 211 



A CRY IN THE DARKNESS. 

Against the bars of blindness beating, 
Entrapped for time's eternal day, 

By neither life nor death completing 
Toil's ceaseless round, we keep the way. 

O life, O love, O deathless yearning! 

Mid fearful gloom we walk alone. 
From dust up-sprung, to dust returning, — 

Thou God ! when shall Thy will be known ? 



212 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



THE PURPOSE OF LIFE. 

Do the tears that arise in the heat of the strife 
Seem to hide from your vision the purpose of Hfe ? 
Do the myriad cares of laborious days 
Leave the doubt in your heart whether Hying them 
pays? 

Banish doubt and plod on: Life was given to man 
As a part of Creation's mysterious plan ; 
Each must carry what burdens the years may bestow 
Until burdens and bearer alike are laid low. 

At the end of the road is a couch with a pall, 
And it may be the couch is the end of it all ; 
Or it may be the spirit, released from the clod, 
Shares the freedom of Time with the infinite God. 

'Tis but folly to dig into moss-covered creeds ; 
Let your life be a record of generous deeds. 
Not the wisest may fathom Futurity's plan, 
But the weakest may live as becometh a man. 



SACRIFICE. 213 



SACRIFICE. 

He who for an immortal life adopts a mortal creed 
Proclaims alone the littleness of egotistic greed. 

Enough it is, as sure it is, that ere I reach my goal, 
Some deed of mine shall glorify the universal soul. 

Light ! give us light that we may know the grandeur of 
the plan 

Wherein all seen and unseen growths are common heir 
with man. 

This blade of grass whereon of late some careless 
passer trod, 

Is flesh of mine and soul of mine and part with me of 
God. 

The witless scoff, the willful blind fling maledictions 
wide. 

But Truth triumphant keeps the way with unimpeded 
stride. 

Time proves all things, defines all things, assorts, ac- 
cepts, rejects ; 

The years a single sermon preach, with sacrifice the 
text. 



214 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 

O man, O woman, heed ye not the anguish of the rod, 
But learn the bUss of sacrifice, that proves the man a 
god. 



AN ARMY ON THE WAY. 215 



AN ARMY ON THE WAY. 

The race is but an army on the way 
From primal Night to truth's eternal Day. 

The journey done, we'll dwell together long 
As brothers under Love's benignant sway. 

In every corps one holds supreme command, 
Commissioned from the all-Creator's hand, 

Assumes the air and station of a god. 
And leaves a gospel regnant in the land. 

Each mighty leader all the rest denies, 
Yet each proclaims the Spirit of the Skies, 
Rewards with hope the multitude behind 
And frowns upon the prematurely wise. 

To each in turn the God enough reveals 
To serve a little time, the rest conceals. 

In tender mercy answers not at all 
Presumptuous man's perpetual appeals. 

Deluded aye, each solemn zealot peers 
Adown the crowded pathway of the years, 

And prophesies for pleasure taken now 
A limitless futurity of tears. 



216 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 

The God of All is good ; he doth decree 
Immortal life divine for you and me ; 

The law is writ in living letters large 
Alike upon the continent and sea. 

I love you all, Mohammedan or Jew, — 
Whoever says his creed alone is true, — 

For we are way-worn comrades and I go 
To share a splendid destiny with you. 



IN THE DAY OF DEMOCRACY. 217 



IN THE DAY OF DEMOCRACY. 

Have you hate in your heart for a mortal, my brother ? 

Do you envy the victors the crowns they have won ? 
Time will show you all mortals made one with each 
other 

In the day when the will of Democracy's done. 

In the day when the will of Democracy's done, 
You and I, in the dust of dead centuries sleeping, 

Will be there in the person of daughter or son. 
All the fruits of our earlier sacrifice reaping. 

All the fruits of our earlier sacrifice reaping, — 
In the ultimate hour possessed of our own ; 

For the God of creation has man in His keeping. 
And be sure we shall reap from the seeds we have 
sown. 



2l8 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



THROUGH THE SPIRIT'S CALM EYES. 

Men are sick with unsatisfied yearning, 

They are chilled by the shadow of fear ; 
They would learn what is past human learning 
Ere the dusk of their day shall appear, 
So with prayers that are ever returning 

Unappeased from vacuity's ear, 
Or with logic high heaven assailing 
In a quest that is vain, unavailing, 
They are borne to the bier. 

Earth but serves for humanity's training, 

'Tis the path of the race, not its goal ; 
Through the years nobler attributes gaining, 

Individuals leaven the whole ; 
Love eternal, her kingdom -attaining, 

Shall perfect us from pole unto pole. 
Though earth die when its mission be ended, 
Yet the spirit of man shall be blended 

With the Infinite Soul. 

At the end of all lusts, of all laughter, 
At the end of all moans and all sighs 



THROUGH THE SPIRITS CALM EYES. 219 

Of our sons and all men who come after, — 
When the earth wanders cold in the skies, 

Or, bereft of what destinies waft her, 
On the floor of the universe lies, — 

We shall see, being healed of our blindness, 

The mysterious ways of God's kindness 
Through the spirit's calm eyes. 



220 OF A DAY THAT IS DAWNING. 



CREED. 

My doubts depart, my hopes are flown— 
When hope is not fear's horror flies ; 

This Hfe is mine — this Hfe alone ; 
The creed that claims another lies. 

To-day, to-morrow, days to be, 
The eternal Now together make ; 

The laws that framed the thou and me 
Shall back to Nature's bosom take. 

By whatsoever of good or grace 
The thou and I bestow on man, 

In so much more the ascending race 
Approximates the perfect plan. 

I have no feud with man or God, 
I care not what the creed you claim ; 

That path the buried billions trod, 

Your feet and mine must tread the same. 

The way is clear, the law is plain, 
A myth deceives the pagan hives ; 

Seek thou this hour the race's gain, — 
The race and not the man survives. 



CREED. 22i 

1 face the darkness unafraid, 

Great Nature's peace my bosom's guest ; 
By labors done my debt repaid, 

By sorrows taught the bHss of rest. 



"Where All Sorts Sit at the 
Board Together." 



IS 



€t 



WHERE ALL SORTS SIT AT THE 
BOARD TOGETHER/' 



BALLAD OF WATTS' BILLY GOAT. 

You talk about your two-wheeled bikes 

With patent rubber tires, 
With shiny spokes and padded seats, 

That all the world admires ; 

But I remember well a time 

When three wheels met my need. 

And say ! I caught the public with 
My old velocipede. 

When Skinny Watts' billy goat — 

His master's joy and pride — 
Came drawing Skinny down the street, 

I'd wheel up to his side ; 

And I would say, says I, "My boy, 

Your goat is getting old." 
Says Skinny, "He can beat your rig 

For marbles, chalk or gold." 



226 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

Gee whillikens ! the fun we had ! 

And how that goat did race, 
While Skinny's coat tails flapped the wind 

Before my eager face. 

With fast and ever faster tread 

I pushed the pedals 'round ; 
My breath it came and went so hard 

I heard no other sound. 

With many an anxious glance ahead 

Along the rutty track, 
My rival's reinsman plied his whip 

Upon his racer's back. 

First I would gain, and then the goat — 
Inspired by Skinny's whacks — 

Would shake me off as if I had 
Been anchored in my tracks. 

As we approached the finish line, 
Where, packed in triple ranks 

The people stood, my wheels were close 
Beside the billy's flanks. 



BALLAD OF WATTS' BILLY GOAT. 227 

Determined now to do or die, 

I summoned all my strength, 
And though the billy did his best, 

I led him home a length. 

H: :)( ^ ^ ^ 

The goat has gone unto his rest — 

I mind the day he died — 
And how we youngsters buried him, 

And how we softly cried ; 

And how poor Skinny's heart was sore 

For many and many a day, 
For thinking of his trusty pet 

That death had led away. 

But time, that gives, doth also heal 

The wounds he wanton makes, 
And Skinny — beg your pardon, Judge — 

Now drives in stylish brakes ; 

While I, as in those happy days. 

The silent steed best like; 
Wherefore my old velocipede 

W^as followed by a bike. 



22g ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 



WHERE NATURE WAITS. 

Let social rank and pride of place 

Be held by them that seek and prize 'em ; 
So I find smiles on nature's face, 

These paltry baubles, I despise 'em. 

The idle fair of folly's code, 

I have no wish to disabuse 'em, 
Nor set upon a manlier road 

The fops whose trade is to amuse 'em. 

The humblest flower amid the grass 
Is worthier thought, in my opinion, 

Than any laced and perfumed ass 

In pompous fashion's dull dominion. 

Let honest toilers bless their lot, 

Nor let the painted show deceive 'em, 

For worth is not where toil is not — 
And idle hands have ills to grieve 'em. 

Where lovely nature's open arms 
Await but your desire to bind you, 

Go walk 'midst her abounding charms 
And leave all envious hates behind you. 



THE INDIVIDUAL. 229 



THE INDIVIDUAL. 

Look neither down nor up, my friend, to vice or virtue 

find; 
For signs of growth look neither before you nor 

behind : 
Lo, every earthly mortal unconsciously within 
Gives room to every virtue and room to every sin. 



230 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 



WALT WHITMAN. 
(To J. G., with a copy of "Leaves of Grass.") 

A democrat of democrats — a man ! — 
A mighty seer amid the sons of song ; 

He grasped entire the scope of Nature's plan, 
Seeing that all is good and nothing wrong. 

He glorified the spirit of the west, 

Withheld no meed of merit from the past; 

He saw with prophet vision that the best 
Of time's reluctant blessings is the last. 

Too great to heed the trammels of the schools, 
Wherein the plodding scribbler serves his day ; 

Indifferent to the mockery of fools, 
He led the race in Love's appointed way. 



UTAH. 231 



UTAH. 

I. 

Strange people, these Mormons that were. 
Caught up in the net of Smith's creed, 
The starvelings of Europe's big towns 
Came over by ship loads, like sheep ; 
Recruits left lean farms where the soil 
But barely supported men's lives. 
A few came with money, and some 
Who had culture exceeding their wit; 
Yet others foresaw in the church 
The means of advancing their fame. 
These were led — these and others — by men 
Who saw with fanatic prevision 
An empire built in the west — 
Themselves as its masters supreme. 

IL 

They journeyed past rivers and plains ; 

They climbed the dark mountains and filed 

Through the passes the Indians knew. 

God had frowned on the land where they stopped; 

It parched under harrowing suns. 

The sage brush and grease wood were there, 



232 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

And the cactus snarled up from the sand, 
But men could not live there — till then. 
These Mormons, however, were stern ; 
They watered the plains with, the snows 
That melted and ran from the ranges, 
They plowed, and they planted — and prayed ; 
And they reaped, for the soil teemed with gold 
That needed but water to fuse. 

III. 

More came across seas, and their priests 

Made converts throughout all our east. 

Polygamy peopled the plain, and its masters 

Grew proud. And pride ever was blind. 

They builded on ignorant hope. 

On vain superstition and fraud, 

On hunger, on fear and on lust. 

They thought that the church could so weld 

Its people together in time 

That the ceaseless wave-beating without 

Of a civilization more pure 

Could never disintegrate them. 

IV. 

Monogamists saw that the land 
The Mormons had settled was good. 
They entered thereon and they dropped 



UTAH. 23.3 



In the ripening soil of the minds 

Of the children of Mormons the seed 

Of a higher spiritual life. 

What's the fruit of it all ? Well, to-day 

This land that the Mormons reclaimed 

Comes into the Union — a State — 

A sister to Maine and Montana, 

To Delaware, Texas, Ohio — 

Well worthy the welcome they give. 

Polygamy skulks in the rear, 

Disowned by the best of its sons — 

Disowned by the church that it built ! 

V. 

Time's alchemy baffles the wisest : 
Here's good sprung from evil direct. 
What good ? Well, a desert made green ; 
A tribe of good men come to life 
From the loins of polygamous sires ; 
A new star in the flag ; a new step 
To the ultimate union in one 
Of all hopes of this nation of ours. 
1895. 



234 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 



THE BAD LITTLE BOY. 

The busy little neighbor boy 
Improves each shining hour 

By doing all the naughtiness 
That lies within his power. 

He "plays for keeps" and daily wins 

Our darling's toys away ; 
And, O the sinful words that he 

Has taught our child to say ! « 

All this, perhaps, I might endure, 

But I must draw the line 
When that his mother says her son 

Learns wickedness from mine. 



THE SINGER SLEEPS. 235 



THE SINGER SLEEPS. . 

(Lines written on the death of Eugene Field.) 

The magic pen is rusting, and the page 
Awaits a touch that it shall never know. 
The gentle hands are folded on his breast; 
The shadowed chamber somber silence keeps; 
Tread soft without, speak low — the singer sleeps. 
Fair fall what dreams illuminate his rest. 
The chosen friend of childhood and the sage, 
Through all the tireless years that come and go ; 
And in God's time be his the tender joy 
To be awakened by a Little Boy. 



236 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 



THE SPIRIT OF CHANGE. 

I. 

The calm stars looking on men see all 
Aspire to power or wealth or fame; 

And each one comes at the Spirit's call, 

Through paths of peace or by roads of flame. 

11. 
The great town's treadmill servants dream — 

So dear God lightens their want and gloom — 
Of joys that beckon by sunlit stream, 

In whispering fields and orchard bloom. 

III. 

The young man hears, in forest or farm, 
The Spirit's challenge and hotly frowns ; 

Then wood and meadow have lost their charm- 
He pits his powers against the town's. 

IV. 
To men grown weary of age-old wrongs. 

In king-ridden lands past far-down seas, 
The Spirit speaks in fiery songs 

That smite and shatter unjust decrees. 



THE SPIRIT OF CHANGE. 237 

V. 
West, west and always westward pour 

The lean hordes sired in ahen hives — 
An endless surge through Freedom's door: 

They sow the desert and lo, it thrives! 

VI. 

A strong race heaping their riches high. 

Lords of a continent, land and tide. 
Leap into regiments, hearing the cry 

Of Progress fighting on earth's far side. 

VIL 

So hatreds perish; so peoples merge; 

So Truth has ever a newer birth ; 
While strong men moved by the Spirit's urge 

Spread Love's Republic over the earth. 



238 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD, 



A SUMMER DAY. 



V 



Whilere the sun hath risen from the sea 

The cock's alarum wakes the sleeping farm, 

The good wife riseth and the sluggish boys 

Turn, grumbling mildly, from their downy couch. 

Beyond the lane, snug under wallows housed. 

The heavy cattle stand and 'gin to graze ; 

The horses whinny shrilly in their stalls ; 

Mine old friend Tray stalks stiffly from his hut; 

The eager swine proclaim the coming day 

By calling loudly for their meed of corn. 

The monarch sun, ere that he comes to view. 

Hath paled and purpled all the eastern arch ; 

He drives the stars, ^night's sentinels, from the sky 

And last their queen, fair Luna, doth depose. 

Again, what while I drive toward the field, 

Ariseth to the cloudless dome of blue 

The ancient rooster's "cock-a-doodle-doo!" 

My wagon rumbles past the osage hedge. 

And past the pond whose banks blue lilies fringe ; 

I note the drops of dew, which, hke fair gems. 

Do sparkle on their petals ; and I see 

Where, near the farther shore, a wild duck feeds, 



A SUMMER DAY. 239 

A rising gentle breeze doth stir the flags 

And toss with airy grace the corn's green plumes ; 

The sun's bright rays do heat the placid air 

Until the world seems wrapped in waves of light; 

Whiles to and fro my horses draw the plow, 

Betimes a rabbit darts across my path ; 

Or Master Squirrel cocks his pretty head 

And gazeth slyly on me ere he turns, 

Evanishing as stilly as he came. 

The sun sails upward to the middle day; 

I crave a cooling flagon from the well. 

When calls across the fields the welcome bell. 

When wife and I and our two sturdy sons 
Are seated at the plain but bounteous board, 
I ask God's grace upon our food, our toil — 
Beseeching Him that He will give us peace 
What while we live, and in the end will close 
Our days in hope to bide with him for aye. 
The noon time passes quickly and I go 
Back 'midst the corn and labor till the eve. 
When that the shadows slant athwart the earth, 
And Sol doth sink into the western sea, 
I leave the plow and turn my team toward home. 
The evening meal dispatched, our boys depart 
To call upon the neighbor youths hard by ; 
The stars return to watch throughout the night, 

16 



vC_ 



240 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

And she, their queen, resumes her vaulted throne; 
Thus, while she floods in radiance all the land, 
My wife and I sit silent, hand in hand. 



FISHING SONG. 241 



FISHING SONG. 

Come, boys, get down your dusty poles, 

Your reels and flies and lines ; 
We're off to where the Brule rolls 

Among the northern pines — 
To where the sparkling Brule rolls 

Among the fragrant pines. 

The ice is gone ; the river flows 

Serenely on her way. 
(But whether south her current goes 

Or north, I cannot say; 
I only know the whisky flows 

The old familiar way.) 

Before our tent beside the stream 

We'll sit and smoke at eve ; 
The nights shall pass with ne'er a dream, 

The days with naught to grieve — 
Clear nights whereon the pale moon's beam 

Shall linger loath to leave. 



242 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

The fish ? Alas ! again must I 
Confess I know them not. 

Guides named them all when I was by 
But I have clean forgot; 

(Or else the poteen held my eye 
So that I heard them not.) 

Enough it is that I declare 
Earth has no fairer scene — 

No joy not held in that crisp air 
Deep in the wildwood green, 

Where gleams the Brule debonair 
Her vineclad banks between. 

So come get down your fishing poles, 
Your patent reels and lines, 

And we'll go where the Brule rolls 
Among the northern pines — 

To where the sparkling Brule rolls 
Among the fragrant pines. 



SINNING AND REPENTING. 243 



SINNING AND REPENTING. 

The dull routine of daily life, 
It palls upon the best of us ; 

They find the narrow path too tame — 
And jump it like the rest of us. 

Old Adam's taint that stirs the blood 
Demands a roaring hour of us ; 

We know it's wrong, but to deny 
Its plea's beyond the power of us. 

So oflf we flit, with happy hearts 
To where inspiring spirits be ; 

We laugh and sing and swap old yarns 
With e'er increasing gayety. 

Braw Bobby weaves a fearsome tale 

Of mysteries all new to us, 
While Tommy's artful tongue unfolds 

Full many a pleasing view to us. 



244 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

'Twixt pipe and bowl our joy ascends, 
But sad, O sad's the fall of us, 

When, wandering home at break of day, 
Reproaches welcome all of us. 

With tears and with a lecture keen 
The good wife stirs the soul in us, 

Till we resolve henceforth to tread 
No path but that of holiness. 



NIGHT AND DAY. 245 



NIGHT AND DAY. 

Whenas my clay 
Slumbereth from the day, 
My soul goes out where ransomed spirits play. 

The clock within th^ tower 
Tolls midnight's hour, 
As swift I fly past forest, field and flower. 

Joy! — ^joy to flee 
From that which burthens me — 
From all its ills and crosses to be free. 

The weary day 
Too long, too long doth stay, 
But like love's hour the night doth speed away. 



246 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 



PROGRESS. 

Since Epictetus spread the rays 
Of Reason's lamp around, 

The human race, by stony ways. 
Has moved to higher ground. 

That time the lauded attribute 

Was courage to endure ; 
To-day's evangels substitute 

An inquiry and cure. 

When Arrianus' pencil caught 

The master sage's speech. 
He felt that biting, pungent thought 

All time the truth would teach. 

Here — here, he said, was logic's end- 
Life's ultimate decree; 

Statutes the years could not amend 
Through all eternity. 



PROGRESS. 247 

So deemed each one whose brain defined 

A nobler moral code; 
But, lo ! the years left all behind, 

Debris beside the road. 

Left all behind ? Well, hardly all ; 

Rather from each they took 
What living brands old creeds let fall 

And all the dead forsook. 

And so to-day the ardent souls 

That preach the latest creed 
Are very sure their scheme controls 

The race's final need. 

Enthusiastic, unafraid. 

Combative men are these, 
Spreading the word, in faith arrayed, 

Beyond the farthest seas. 

I would not by or speech or pen 

Their glorious zeal abate 
Whose lives of love proclaim to men 

The mockery of hate. 



248 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

And yet — and yet — time's teachings show 

Some day beneath the sun 
A fairer plan than aught we know 

Will prove Christ's labor done. 

Not soon — the long, long years will fade 
Ere Time shall bear the hour 

When every human heart is made 
To feel the Martyr's power. 

But in some period, distant, dim, 

The eyes of man shall read 
The perfect purpose writ by Him 

Who scattered here the seed. 



NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE. 249 



NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE. 

Alone on the limitless prairie — 
On a borderless sea of prairie. 

Yet not all alone, for the stars are above 

And pale daisies float on the ocean of green ; 
Not alone, for the Spirit of Infinite Love 

Fills and surrounds the whole magical scene; 
Fills and surrounds it with wonders unending, 

Tempers and softens the crystalline light 
Of the moon, that, in luminous splendor ascending, 

Gazes like a goddess on the night. 

Night and the silence of death on the prairie — 
On the star-studded stretch of the prairie. 

Silence that weighs like a stone on the soul ; 

Of a tomb whence the spirit has arisen in the night ; 
Or a frame whence the ego has gone to its goal ; 

Or the grave, when, life's vanities faded from sight, 
Soothed into stillness by Lethe's embraces — 

Forgot all our past, all its dark misbehavior — 
We sleep in the dust of unnumbered dead races, 

Awaiting the loving command of our Saviour. 



250 ALL SORTS AT THE BOARD. 

Here, far from men, am I near to my Father — 
Thrilled and inspired by His manifest presence. 

Out of far space, down through aeons of ages, 

Steals a divinely melodious strain — 
Nature's grand harmony. Peasants and sages 

Hear it in solitude oft and again. 
All earth life feels and is glorified by it, 

Beauty has in it an alpha divine; 
Gladness springs up in the heart melted by it — 

Gladness in beauty how doubly divine! 



NIGHT IN THE WOOD. 251 



NIGHT IN THE WOOD. 

I'm alone in the wood, with its legend and story, 
In the trees is the murmur of wind and of rain ; 

And I'm thinking how hollow a bauble is glory, 
How poor the ambition that's fixed upon gain. 

Hush! a bird-note in plaintive remonstrance ascend- 
ing; 
Over yonder the waters rise up to the mist, 
And the gray of the eve with night's blackness is 
blending, 
When — again that sweet even-song — list to it ! — list ! 

O my soul, may the voice of the Father come calling 
To His children at eve with as tender a tone; 

And as now may the tremulous shadows in falling. 
O'er our faults in like generous mercy be thrown. 



NOV 20 1899 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



